Silhouette of Time
by FlyAwayNow
Summary: A prequel story based around a nuzlocker's interpretation of the Pokémon world: A soldier cast asides by his nation for doing what he knows was right. A major general trying to change the future. An industry seeking to play god. A Pikachu fighting for his adoptive family. It may not sound like the end of Pokémon, but it's a start to it.
1. Foreword

_Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended._

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Regardless of how you view time, regardless of how you think it all plays out and what twisted machinations it follows through its own script, there is always one finality of time regardless of a specific order:

Everything has a beginning and an end. One might say that ends are just new beginnings, or that ends means an absolute, but no matter how you interpret it these things will happen to you.

This story is about the beginning of the end, of means justified by ends.

A soldier cast asides by his nation for dealing an absolute to his enemy, leaving no survivors in a world that is comprised entirely of survivors from a third great war. Left with no other options he is forced to work against, and eventually directly fight, his former brothers in arms. For money? For redemption? For one last shot at the thrill of battle? That can be up to interpretation, but in the end Mikita Tolya Noelle, a descendent from the survivors of the Soviet Union, will be responsible for spilling the blood that will stain time's flow forever more.

Why?

It is impossible to cleanse time, to stop it or to change where it came from, most namely because we are a part of it.

We can dream of what-ifs, could-have-dones, and memories to be. But in the end the point is that none of those thoughts matter.

This story is a fanfiction of a fanfiction of the Pokémon series. More specifically the source of this story comes from another (on going as of the time I wrote this) story that chronicles a journey of a young man trapped inside himself, who dares travels his home region to be the very best that no one ever was, even though he has an almost crippling condition. Travelling the Kanto Region, Red follows the path many have done for themselves, the only difference between them and him is for his partner: a well-experienced Pikachu, hiding a traumatized persona under one of a carefree youth.

During their travels they challenge gyms, battle rivals, confront death as it personally trails them, and eventually deal with a powerful organization known as Rocket Industries, largely responsible for many things in the current economical and societal world. How will they get to the end of their journey? Assumed that they even get there at all? And what will manifest in the end? That I am bound not to say.

But what I can say is how this world came to be in the first place:

A Cold War gone hot.

A missile crisis that exploded into a world war.

Neutron bombs that fell, killing not by kinetic or explosive energy, but by radiation. The radiation then in turned killed the weak, but failing to kill the strong. The blood, and bones, and DNA of the survivors morphed and mutated, man becoming resistant to a degree, animals and plants affected much more differently. The changes came faster than any evolution in history, in the span of decades the off spring of those animals afflicted by radiation gained almost mythical and biblical powers.

With these powers almost all animals that existed before the bombs fell were extinct before mankind could've done anything, the new generations of animals becoming monsters. As the world rebuilt and regrouped, mankind found a common enemy and went war for the first time in history not against themselves, but against a mutually agreed threat.

A United Nations Government was found. Protecting these new united nations: an Army.

The conflict that ensued in all corners of the world is now known as the Pokémon Crisis, genocide was a common, and mankind found beasts that could match them in fury. Mutated whales and lizards that could create new islands, species that could control the weather, and beasts that could take on armored tanks by themselves.

It only ended after, as is common in human history, enemies were made friends and the monsters were tamed.

The devices used to tame and control them were spheres that could harness atomic energy to contain them into extremely compact forms, being able to fit into pockets.

So these newly tamed monsters were given a broad name in addition to their individual ones: Pokémon.

However people who know medical sciences know that Pokémon will not last. Why? Well Pokémon are the living examples and beings of cancer. They are not afflicted by cancer. They are cancer. For bodies, when exposed to mutations or cancer, naturally fight it off, killing ALL afflicted cells.

But as this is yet to be noticed Pokémon have a welcome place at our sides as companions, workers, friends, and in popular culture: battle partners, some people training Pokémon for competitive sport.

This story casts aside the utopia that Pokémon is presented as, and also prods into military culture in a world at almost constant war with raiders, tribals, and left overs from hostilities established centuries in the past. Should I be inaccurate in some terminology or need to tone it down, feel free to advise me. Questions are also welcomed.

Mikita is not a self-insert. He is a simple trainer who hailed from Fortree looking for something more meaningful in his life and to fight for his government. He was something more once, however the Army broke him down and built him up again to be the faceless officer they wanted to him to be.

After being dishonorably discharged, disillusioned and left with nowhere to go, he finds himself a long way from home at ground zero of the Third World War in the region of Guyana, intent on getting a good start on a new life, after ending the old one that hangs over him like an overbearing sun through a simple delivery contract offered by R Industries.

The source material for this story can be found on Landwalker's Deviantart and Tumblr. Landwalker is the young man responsible for this world, and you should check out his nuzlocke accordingly. In fact if anything, you should check his work out before mine.

Many thanks for Landwalker for communicating and helping the progression of this story.


	2. Q&A

All questions about the world, lore, will be placed in this chapter and answered by me.

Explanations and change logs will also be noted in this section.

Feel free to read, but be wary of spoilers.

One of my pet peeves is that I'm not the best proofreader and this story's constant development is very 'dynamic'. I know there are inconsintencies and grammatical errors, but I'll iron them out even sooner if you readers help me out.

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A few things of note regarding formatting: This site's formatting in terms of publishing is a bit off, so some line breaks might be missing. Also some of the chapters have subtitles, usually for location of flashback.

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Q: DarkBlackArcanine (On Deviantart) -** "Wait...that makes no sense...Pokemon are cancer and they won't last because why?"**

A:

I'll put this into a historical case:

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now since it remains the only use of nuclear warfare most of the effects of radiation that came from a wartime use stems from there and the Chernobyl Incident.

The experience of Tsutomu Yamaguchi and his children is where I draw my how and why of things to Pokemon dying out. As you should notice in Landwalker's Yellow Nuzlocke, it is revealed in the first part of ACT 2 that the number of Pokemon have reduced over the years to merely a 150 (or perhaps a 151?) in Kanto. The exact variance of species in each region of the world greatly varies, but for the case of Landwalker's Yellow Nuzlocke it is the original 150.

Anyway, onto my explanation.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi is a nijū hibakusha, in a direct translation from Japanese it is (double explosion effect person). This means he among with a remarkably unlucky group of Japanese during the waning days of the 2nd World War that experienced both the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Seeing as he survived both of the initial blasts, he was left to deal with the radioactive fallout and the black rain. With Japan's recovery after the war those afflicted by the bombs had to make a choice of if they could've been able to have children, let alone have healthy children.

Mr. Yamaguchi and his wife (also a survivor of Nagasaki) went for it and they had children. Children, as in multiple kids, three in fact.

Now this is where I draw parallels to Pokemon. You do not see evolution happen in one generation, instead it is a steady progression over multiple generations.

Mr. Yamaguchi lived until recently, in 2010 he died of stomach cancer. In life he was afflicted by, among other radiation-related illnesses, leukemia and cataracts and commendably voiced his opinion in nuclear disarmament as no man could've done before.

However it is his children that still confuses real life scientist to this day. In their youth they were plagued by sicknesses attributed with what is quite obviously their parent's experiences during the bombings and subsequent fallout. However as they progressed in life, they survived and lived normal lives as opposed to hundreds of other Japanese children born from hibakusha.

Along those lines, in Landwalker's lore a global nuclear war happened, so it is not outlandish to think that some animals survived and were heavily afflicted by the fallout all across the globe. It is also not outlandish to think that some of those animals gave birth to new generations afterwards, even with strange new mutations because of the fallout, some surviving in a bastard form of evolution.

Why do some survive and some do not? Many people say it is the special protein that resists what the atomic bomb did to Mr and Mrs Yamaguchi's DNA (Gamma rays shredding DNA apart). A gene called p53. As a guardian angel of your DNA it is crucial in the life of living organisms because it regulates our cell cycles, and thus acts as a tumor suppressor that stops cancer. This gene varies from person to person in effectiveness, Mr Yamaguchi's p53 being potent (or lucky) enough that he and his children were able to side step a radioactive curse for the most part.

Now p53 kicks both ways in this case, both allowing Pokemon to become real, and also acting as a ticking time bomb that will gradually eat away at their cells as the radiation throughout the world becomes less and less prominent.

I understand I must sound like I am stretching it, but then again where I am coming from (Pokemon) doesn't leave much room for sensible science.

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Q: Guest (On ) - **"The only problem I see is that Noelle seems to be doing this a bit too easily. Luck is definitely on his side."**

A:

Thanks for the kind words before that question.

I'll quote Cormac McCarthy on this in his novel about the hardships of the American West:

_"It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way."_

Think about that. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. I'm not going to say I've made Mikita to be the ultimate practitioner, but in this world, there's no other reason to join the military other than to get a piece of that pie. In a world born from war, where the populace tires of it and the scum and filth of pirates and raiders are chaff on the news, and where there only exists one mega government, there exists no other reason asides from getting away from one life. There's no nationalism, no evil commie or fascistic pig to pit your ideals and beliefs against. It's just survival. A way of life.

For nearly a decade, Miktia has been fighting. Fighting not because he was forced to or compelled to because of his nation or country, but because he figured it would be something he was good at. It's never gets easier to kill, but he is disillusioned, jaded, and nulled in terms of his attitude to kill.

Maybe I myself am not one to say, the only notches on my rifle are because of hogs, radically different than humans. But then again he spent a lot of time being broken down and brought up to be taught to not care about who he kills, and to worry only about the objective and mission imperatives.

He's not bloodthirsty or psychopathic. Maybe a a tad sociopath, but he's seen and done shit that exists in this mutated world.

If it seems easy to him, it's because it is. But then again all his contacts so far have been on his terms.

Trust me, he'll be beaten to shit as these two weeks in Guyana go on.

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Q:** Where is the point of division between this story's world and our world?**

A:

I'll make a point and say that this is what I believe happened in Landwalker's world, and not necessarily what he has thought up.

Anyway, more history lessons: Rewind to October 1962.

It's the time of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall had just been closed, Vietnam is about to get hot, and Kennedy would be assassinated in the following year. Despite its name, the Cold War was the hottest time in history as of yet, the closest anyone would get to nuclear war without actually letting the nukes fly. The peak of this cold war is also where the river of time splits.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a military/political standoff in October of 1962 over the discovery of Soviet nuclear weapons on Cuban soil. In defensive reaction, the U.S blockaded the nation of Cuba just a little less than a hundred miles from American shores. However, disaster was avoided when the U.S and the Soviets found resolution in this agreement: The nuclear missiles on Cuba being removed in exchange for Western missile installations in Turkey and Italy being dismantled.

The 13 days that made up the Crisis was the closest the world ever got to burning, but it fortunately it didn't.

But what if the Cold War turned hot?

_October 27th, day 12 of the event._

_Soviet Submarine____Б-59, _a nuclear armed Foxtrot-class submarine was intercepted by the American blockade en route to Cuba in aid of the Soviet arm delivery operations occurring during the crisis. The USS Randolph and 11 destroyers intercepted B-59, dropping low-yield depth charges in an attempt to force the sub to surface for identification.

B-59 was out of contact with Moscow for days, and in the solitude of submarine life the entire crew of B-59 did not have knowledge of the events outside their submarine. Under these circumstances the crew of B-59 assumed that war had broken out, and nuclear tipped torpedoes were prepped for usage against the Randolph and its contingent. The only thing stopping the usage of nuclear weapons was the approval of every commanding officer on the ship, action only taken when all three officers were willing to do so. These men were Captain **Valantin Savitsky**, the political officer** Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov**, and entire-sub-flotilla commander **Vasili**** Alexandrovich** Arkhipov.

The only reason why the nukes didn't fly was because of **Vasili Arkhipov's** disagreement to launch the nuclear torpedoes, nuclear war averted as B-59 surrendered and returned home to the USSR.

That one decision, that one vote that stopped total war between both nations, is what I determine to be the division point between Landwalker's world and this story's, to reality. If the flotilla commander had said yes, the nukes would've flown, the world destroyed and coated with radiation from ICBMs, nuclear missiles, neutron bombs, and hellish warfare.

That was in 1962. The time now in my story is 2325. That is over 360 years after that world changing decision happened, and for us in 2013, that is only 51 years ago. The world has changed so much in both versions.

And yet time flows forward, never stopping, never ceasing.

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Q:** What does this world look like?**

A: How I envision it? Well there's a link to a rough map of it on my Deviantart account, within the Q&A section posted there. I also have a dropbox for reference images I use: sh/v64psx22cgyhmuc/s5V4YpWPpg - Place that string in front of the dropbox address.


	3. Intro I

The Army didn't fret with the details of something as simple and routine as an armed raid. No intelligence given beforehand, no cover of night, no concrete plan of action. It was short and simple and to the point: Kill the enemy. So they rode out in the clear day under the blue, southern Hoeannic sky in their CRRCs, hugging the rims as the wheelman led them south to one of the floating wooden cities that had made itself a bother to the trade ships in the region's waters.

The helicopter had hot dropped them into the ocean just outside the visual range of the floating wooden town of pirates loaded for bear. Of course no bears had been present, but there had been two animals with them nonetheless. The two Zodiacs were light vehicles, their skin durable, but the men that rode them in like horses didn't want to rely on their Kevlar and armor plates deflecting the bullets as the hardened rubber would've.

The handler ordered the Pokémon to put up the metaphysical wall around them, the sting in the air and the energy that pricked their skins were signs that they were protected by the psychic energy. The drops of water that splashed up in front of their watercraft were vaporized as they hit the invisible psychic wall. The sting of the energy was only rivaled by the rush of blood in the heads of the eighteen men that were riding the waves towards battle.

"The Espeon's going to carry us all the way in LT?" One of the privates that held on the side of the boats had yelled to beat out the sound of the water. The Pokémon in question were belly flat on the zodiacs, eyes and gems glowing the surreal pink that gave off their energy.

"Have a little faith Covey!" 2nd Lieutenant Mikita Noelle yelled back as he directed the motor of the CRRC he was in command of. The Captain and he had split the squad up, nine men to each officer, a total of twenty soldiers rushing in toward the approaching pirate establishment. Personally Mikita thought it was a few men too many, but he wasn't going to detest if it all went south. The grey and black gear they wore had all been dampened by the ocean, the beads of moisture forming on the plastic of their rifles constantly being wiped off over fear of their grip on the foregaurds and triggers slipping.

Mikita's ballistic face mask came down as the spouts of smoke that the floating town gave off were seen hundreds of meters away, his beanie covering his forehead as the goggles were slapped down with his unoccupied hand.

Towns like these were often formed by pirates, refugees, raiders and of the like in almost all the oceans. The problem with dealing with them is that once a town was swept up more people would occupy them in the deceased's place. Scuttling them had become a very difficult procedure, so instead they were used as bait, training areas, or legitimate settlements. Of course the United Nations Government Army did not raid these numerous floating camps and towns without a legitimate reason.

The outpost before them was one that had sprouted up in one fortnight, a medium floating facility that recently raided a cargo vessel coming out of Oblivia. The supplies were hardly of interest; instead it was rather just an excuse to eradicate the pirates in the area.

The smoke got blacker, more defined, as it floated above the floating buildings that they approached with their speeding Zodiacs.

"First time Corporal Haven?" Mikita used his foot to touch the tense corporal, chiding him, his apparent fear of water getting to him as he focused on the depths below them instead of the floating town hundreds of meters out and closing.

"Just keeping watch for Sharpedo." Haven shouldered his AR, leveling it with the water's surface, forcing away his hydrophobia through his teeth.

As the field medic Mikita had already recognized this beforehand and given him a capsule of pills that would've helped his stomach, but he knew Haven was fussy when it came to his treatments and field shots. Mikita's shotgun was wiped clean of water momentarily as it lay at his side as if it had instead been a paddle, his other free hand making a circle with his index and thumb in the air. It was a wilco to the Captain's orders, his hand flat and sideways, pointing the opposite direction to where his zodiac had been steering.

The Captain ordered a split up of the group and Mikita obliged by heading the other way.

In his head the Captain told him the procedure, the familiarity of the scenario running through his head. 'Split up, cut their forces in half, meet me in the middle.'

Of course all plans, even ones thrown together seconds before engagement, always fell apart upon enemy contact.

Mikita yanked the stick left, the hundreds of meters closing between the raiding group and the pirate camp closing as he broke off. Even above the roar of the engine and the crashes of the waves, the constant purring of the Espeon stayed strong. Of course Mikita's meal plan helped sustain the longevity of their Espeon's protecting abilities, the high calories given translated into boosted psychic power.

The rest of the ride was rode out in silence, Mikita's men tense, hands and backs taut against whatever they had been holding on to. For some it was their rifles or pistols, some the rubber of the Zodiac and the strings connected to the boat. The Pokémon handler's hand was safely placed on the back of the Espeon, calming it. Mikita didn't need to be medically trained to know he had been sick, not feeling anything in his stomach or a storm in his head as they progressed toward the thin line between dealing death and receiving it. The twenty four year old knew the feeling before battle well; too well. The thrill of the Pokémon battles he once directed had paled in comparison to the thrill of a firefight, and it was a high he wasn't able to escape. He grinned behind his ballistic mask, the blood colored cross dead center of the black denoting his role in the squad, the silver bar on his right shoulder the mark of a Vermillion graduate. The education of being a medic and the education of being an officer had paid off again and again.

"Another day on the job_ tovariches_." The lieutenant called out, the final word an echo of his ancestors three hundred years ago.

"U-rah!" His squad responded in a rallying shout. The Designated Marksmen had raised his M110's optics as he surveyed the target.

"We've got positive contact! Estimate two dot half minutes out."

"Heads down, load up." Mikita briskly ordered.

The nine men and one Pokémon that were under his command had hit the deck, heads tucked in as the last two hundred meters closed. They never had the element of surprise, the shouts of the pirates now above the sound of the watercraft. Subtlety was never the Army's forte however. The first gun shots were fired in their general direction by the pirates, the sounds of missed rounds skipping on the waves around them drowned out by the zaps of the bullets that hit the Espeon's wall.

Mikita subdued his flinching as he passed into the final one hundred meters. One gloved hand around the control of the engine, one around the grip of his Mossberg. Tanned skinned pirates ran into a firing line on the floating platforms that Mikita was intent to ram into, the rest scurrying off in order to grab their belongings or weapons.

The Espeon felt each bullet hit its shield, holding the shield with all its might. The men tapped down their kits, floatation devices on their belts checked as the sound of Kalashnikovs filled the air.

"Eighty meters!" They couldn't fire through the Espeon's guard, but weapons from the Army squad rose in instinctual reaction anyway. The bullets that hit the shield fizzled up and were tossed asides.

"Fifty!" Mikita cried out, legs primed to hop out and dive into either a wooden platform if he was lucky, or into the water.

"Thirty!" A bullet had broken through and ricocheted into the zodiac, digging into the reinforced structure above the waterline fortunately. Some prayed to the Lord and his Pokémon Arceus, some to prophets and deities which he only knew because some his patients were religiously bound to not have some treatments, but Mikita prayed that the water hadn't lodged itself in his shotgun in any harmful way.

"Ten!" They saw the whites of each other's eyes, the scars each side bore and the red, white, and blue patch that was the UNGA's calling card. The Espeon was about to give out, but its handlers grabbed it as it had and clung it to his chest. In those last seconds as the zodiac was about to collide into the wooden platform everyone had made their move. The tribals in the path of the heavy boat dove out of the way as the soldiers dove out. Some rolled out onto the platform, some stayed with the boat as it crashed onto the floating wooden platform that served as a dock apparently, but only the insane had dove into the water before the zodiac had hit. Being kept afloat by only the floatation devices on their rigs, they had ended up underneath the platform as the rest had taken up the top.

Mikita was one of the insane, he hitting the water likes a torpedo, a rifleman and the Pokémon handler with his Espeon following their lieutenant in as the rest tumbled atop them.

The soldiers that hit the water had taken the landing the best, their rifles raised up towards the floor as those who landed on the platform stumbled and recomposed from the impact. It was easy enough to tell friend from foe as their shadows shifted above them, beams of light punching through the wooden floor.

The sound of his shotgun being pumped above the water made the pirate above him jump, but he jumped again as the floor underneath him was blown out along with a piece of his thigh. The water and the platform was not at all a stable surface to shoot on, but it was point blank. The rifleman and the Pokémon handler opened fire with their M4 and HiPower, the pirates dancing as the floor beneath them was shot up. No bullets came down in retaliation as the part of the team that was on the platform finally got together and started their sweep.

The twelve gauge shotgun had blown holes large enough for ever the fully outfitted soldiers to crawl through, but it was ladies first as the Espeon was passed to Mikita, raising the creature out onto the platform as the team secured the immediate area.

"Officer on deck…" Mikita joked with the formal language as he grasped the hand of one of his soldiers that offered it through the hole. Sparse gunfire erupted around them. Hardly any of the pirates had the stones to actually combat UNGA soldiers, those who did so resisted because they wanted death or were fool hardy.

He scrambled up on deck and fell into his squad. All nine had survived, some bruised over the impact, but alive nonetheless. The handler came out and immediately placed himself in front of his Pokémon, intent of safeguarding the creature that he called his own.

The salt water washed off his goggles enough to view the situation. The town ebbed on the waves, people taking off on boats and canoes out into the oceans to get away from the raiding party. Those who stayed were the pirates that had been hardened enough to kill the cargo ship crew.

It was all flat, little cover asides from the wooden houses built up. Wood wasn't a good cover material anyhow, but that could cut both ways as Mikita knows from the hundreds of firefights underneath his belt.

Several metal boats had been docked, some welded together to make some sort of town hall or center. That was as good a target as any.

The 360 degree FOV that the squad had created stared down the immediate area around them. They reloaded and refitted, some of the squad taking potshots at those who actively resisted.

"Groups of three. Split up; converge on that hulk of that ship in ten. Haven, Crowe, with me." The rest of the squad acted independent after the order, the rest splitting off and going their own path through the town. Haven took point, Crowe, the Pokémon handler, took the rear with his Espeon. The Pokémon was still recharging, but Mikita cupped its mouth and sent a diamond shaped pill down into its system. The Pokémon was revived in that moment just as Mikita and Haven laid up against the walls adjacent a wooden door, covered by the remaining two of the group.

The muzzle fire of the shotgun had nearly singed Haven as Mikita shot out the lock, however Haven hadn't missed the well-practiced procedure as his right leg came under and kicked in the door with a wooden thud. The door flew open and Mikita followed up with his shotgun raised through the door, Haven's hand on his back and following his officer through the breach.

The barrel of Haven's M4 was at the edge of Mikita's vision, but he was otherwise occupied with the spear that was coming toward him. In the dark of the cabin all he saw was the glow of the pirate's eyes through the red rag that surrounded his head. Mikita's gauntlets forced the rusty spear away as the shotgun was thrusted into the pirate's gut.

Haven pushed ahead as Mikita forced the pirate onto the ground, clearing the house with a series of yells and gun shots.

"We have any room for prisoners on the Chinook?" Haven asked as he waited for his officer to finish his business with the pirate, rifle pointed out a window at a particularly menacing shack that was on the way to the floating town's center. A magnificent bang went off in his ears and the relatively spooked soldier panicked, ducking his head down and gripping his weapons tight against his chest as his breath hitched.

With a crisp racking of his shotgun, Mikita answered his question.

His answer was a hole blown through the floor and the pirate's stomach.

"Jesus Christ LT." Haven's eyes were wide and he felt his knees buckle. The gore was never something the corporal had been used to, but Mikita on the other hand, it was something he had chosen and taken into his heart as a field medic. It wasn't an amputation he had just done however as he ejected a used shell and inserted a new one via the loading gate. The lieutenant knelt down and closed the painful face of the pirate he had blown out, hands patting down pockets and his clothing afterwards.

Crowe had come into the cabin, eyes still scanning their six.

"Espy here doesn't agree with me you know," Crowe had stated, pistol pointed out of the cabin as he glanced back to the scavenging officer. The Espeon purred aggressively, tail flicking angrily at Mikita.

"On what?" He muffled through his ballistic mask, holding up a folded piece of paper, not sure if the Espeon was commentating on the scavenging or the kill.

"That little display there." Crowe answered in his Australian tinged accent.

"She doesn't outrank me Crowe." The blood flowed into the ocean, the Remoraid already coming around the town in wait for the Sharpedo that would've answered the smell of the crimson. He held the paper up to the light, unfolding it, quickly glancing over it, before pushing the slip into his chest piece for safekeeping. It was an interesting piece. A humanitarian leaflet was fairly out of place on a pirate establishment.

A ripple of gunfire erupted and hit the side of the cabin they were in, Haven stumbling back as the burst was aimed at him. It interrupted Mikita's routine of patting down the bodies of the deceased, granted he had chosen a less than opportune time to do so, but now was the time to fight.

With a quick ejection of the buckshot in exchange for a slug, he yelled out and got to the little cover the cabin provided, ordering his men.

"Return fire!"


	4. Intro II

Usually the phone calls that came from his office were long, full of exposition, persuasive, and powerful, as was one of the traits of being the CEO of the most successful organizations under Silph Co. However Giovanni had always been to the point, and so the word count of this message didn't even reach into the double digits:

"The mercenary has my approval." And then without waiting for a confirmation, the phone was set back into its holster and the now free hand went to grasp the glass of golden bourbon adjacent. Legs crossed, he made a subtle, if not taunting, gesture with his other hand to his audience of one. The man standing at attention across from him wore the face of disdain, unbelieving that his boss had the tenacity to even pull through with that order.

"You sure as hell don't have mine, Boss." His eyes flared, restrained by the absolute respect he had forged in his duty to the man before him.

"I don't need your approval Archer." The golden bourbon was idly sipped at, the glaze being one of the only colors in the room bar the shades of blue provided by Giovanni's eyes and Archer's eyes. The office was modern, the colors ranging from light grey and leathered black, the ambience kept ever darker by the lack of lighting asides from the wall sized windows that made up the outfacing side of the building. Giovanni had preferred it however, as hinted in the rather pale tone of his skin.

"I thought it'd be best for you just to heed my advice." The junior executive ran a hand through his head in a subdued anger.

"This man is a loose cannon Boss. We shouldn't trust him with the transportation of such a discovery." Doubt was thrown toward his boss. He had been unaffected by it of course, the smug look on his smirk denoting that his opinion was not about to change.

However Archer's concerns were not unfounded, the thought of using a third party asset instead of a well regulated and close to base one defied the objective that the Mercenary, thanks to the Boss, had been assigned. It was one of magnificent value, followed up by an equally magnificent payout. Had Rocket had their way with the United Nations Government, they would've have sent in an entire company of Rocket's field trainers to secure their founding in Guyana an ocean away. However the government had been less than willing to cooperate with Rocket Industries and the checkpoints they set up surrounding the dig site were to prove difficult in keeping the discovery a secret.

The task, and promise of payout was a secret unto itself, distributed to the militants and pirates in the Orrean East and the seas south of Hoenn in hopes of avoiding UNG discovery, double checked to be tracked back to a third party, and affiliated with Rocket only at the basic levels. "Deliver a biotic package from the Guyana region to the Cinnabar Isles and meet with a to be named contact." The short message followed by contact details and, of course, the payout: a sum of 400,000 UNG bank notes, several years' salary. The details had beaten around the bush and even the common filth among pirates and the hired guns mostly declined and shy away from the offer. They had been mostly busy fighting back UNG Army forces whom were always on the hunt for them, and for a short while, the decision made by the Giovanni himself to spread these leaflets, was doubted even by him.

So it was a great surprise when the offer had been claimed by someone that was –or rather had been- in the UNGA.

"He is loyal to the cause Archer." Giovanni drew out his sentence, the rabble of late night traffic of Saffron City rumbling beneath the Silph building outpaced his words.

"I don't think how he was discharged commends his loyalty."

The man in question had a dossier sitting on the darkened amber of his desk, the mug shot of his incarceration in the firebase jail adorning the cover of the plain folder. His head was recently shaven, the scruff surrounding his jaw coming back in line with his messily forming hair. He was a soldier, dog tags poking through the man's sand colored T-shirt that served as his on base casual attire. His eyes a grey smear as the camera shot him amidst a bare wall. His hands cuffed outside the frame of the picture, he stood unashamed, though weary. The date of the picture was clearly shown by the date shown by a digital marker on the wall: February 15th, 2325. Not more than two weeks ago.

"I am led to believe his loyalty to his cause had forced his hand against his superiors Archer." The man in question was young, his face lacked signs of the age that had come upon Giovanni himself. At twenty four, he was a 2nd Lieutenant, the digital marker also denoting his rank, role, and name.

"Though I do believe a field doctor such as him would be beneficial to the transport of the discovery, medical training and all, I don't think someone who thinks so out of line will be able to…."

"Archer." He had not deviated his tone at all during the meeting, the solemnness of his voice calm and reassuring.

"He did what he did to stay loyal to his cause." He pushed the vague report of his offense forward, a blurred account of a shot-up Pokémon Ranger vest and a few pictures of Garchomp corpses in a Fiorean sewer. "His cause now, is that to our paycheck."

In Giovanni's head, he replayed how the meeting between him and the soldier had gone: He had been uncomfortable in a suit and his discipline forged in the face of his military commanders and in skirmishes with the militants kept unchecked throughout the world. It impressed him; the respect he commanded from him had beaten those of his own executives, especially beating out the one of the man in front of him. He had talked as if in a job interview, not reluctant to give up hushed stories of the group that had betrayed him in his mind, and not asking questions in the forced naivety that soldiers were forced to have. For a second, Giovanni sympathized during the meeting, the job outlook for dishonorably discharged soldiers less than promising, the soldier briskly aware of that. The lack of career choices, among other reasons, pushed him to take the offer he had seen advertised on the leaflet after a pirate camp raid prior to his dischargement.

"You believe a mercenary's loyalty to their money will justify his loyalty to us?" Disbelief tinted Archer's voice.

"It has for you, no?" The Boss quietly gave a chuckle, the young executive silently pulling back his argument.

"Boss you know that I'm in this for more than money…" His voice danced about in a joking manner. "Right?"

"I reserve my own judgment Archer; however I believe that this trained soldier will be able to perform a simple task of escorting a package discreetly."

"Then why the high payout, sir?" Archer had asked, genuinely intrigued by the figure.

"Things like this are never routine. If this pulls off without any hitches, then we will consider ourselves lucky."

"And who do you think will interrupt our plans?"

"A whole myriad of people might interfere given the chance that this leaks out. So the price covers a potential…skirmish …or something of the like."

"You planned for the greatest discovery of these last few centuries to be put in harm's way then?"

"Guyana is a back water country, however I heed you not to worry, and this man has dealt with the type before." The dossier was opened, and the contents neatly spread on the table in typical military organization. 2nd Lieutenant Mikita Noelle's ancestors had hailed from the western mainland. Colloquially known now as Siberia, a remnant of the 20th century that kept with the locals amidst the official title of the region: Boreal. The lineage of his mother traced back to the fisher families whom were at sea when the bombs fell, coming to rest on Hoenn's northern tip, the father's lineage tracing back to Slavic foreign hunters dealing with a wolf problem in northern Hoenn as well. That particular ethnic strain was now only seen in the areas surrounding Fortree city, the silver eyes of the Siberians and Russians differentiating from the local populace. Blue eyes were the tell-tale trait of a Hoennanic native, as Giovanni himself knew all so well whenever he had passed a mirror, silver eyes almost unseen anywhere else. Giovanni was never a man to make gambits on such fruitless details, years of science and research having led to his successes of discovering free healthcare systems, phase systems that allowed items to be stored by shrinking molecules, and the very feat of teleportation. However he had known more often than not to take leaps of faith (when backed by proper support of course) at occasional intervals.

Silver eyes had taken the form of the future for Giovanni, his own son's eyes being a light shade the color even when his own ancestry eluded him. So it was when 2nd Lieutenant Mikita stared into the camera giving his mug shot, that Giovanni saw the future of his company being held when he allowed his cryptic side to override some decisions that his common sense had made.

Of course what Archer saw in the unsaid reasoning was that his Boss was going mad.

"I don't follow Boss." He said, giving up hope of turning his Boss' reasoning.

"That is why you will lead, Archer." His head tilted, his brow squinting to see the meaning of the last statement. The bourbon was finished as the glass was replaced by a simple cell phone, the type you'd seen in the hands of a drug dealer as opposed to a Fortune 500 CEO. He tossed the plastic device over the table, the seasoned trainer that the junior executive was quickly catching it as he did his rebounding Pokéballs.

He turned it around in his leather gloved hand, the phone freshly bought as noted by the lack of any wear,

"In that phone you will find the number of Lieutenant Noelle." He rose from his leather chair as he did, the sound dampened by the carpet as he went to stand at the front of his junior executive.

"He will contact you by afternoon tomorrow and then you are to guide him through any complications that might arise if you are so worried." His hand went to his back, guiding him to those wall sized windows that peered out into the Saffron skyline. The city had turned into the center of Kanto and Johtonian economics. Giovanni, and the corporation that his industry was signed under, was at the center of that. So his position had quite fittingly commanded the view which he and his subordinate gazed out to now, their reflections staring back at them.

"Don't think I do not appreciate what our team in Guyana has found Archer," His hands wandered to the pockets of his suit, barely grazing against the Pokéball that had held his personal companion.

"It is a revolutionary discovery at that, Boss."

History was a favorite topic of Giovanni, as denoted by the countless volumes of books that had adorned themselves on the book cases that took up one of his office's walls: _Human History of the 2__Nd__ Millennium, The Great Gatsby, A Guide to New World Economics, An Account of the Third World War_…

Many stoic business men, much like him, had been aware of the age old adage that has proven the truth time and time again, and had always counted on it in relative terms. Stocks always traced the same old lines across the screens, battlers and competitors on the fields in the Indigo Plateau used the same tired techniques, and species moved and migrated as per the cycles of life. History had always repeated itself, political leaders would rise and fall, and people would always become the things they hated.

"Pokémon are a part of history," Products of radiation mutations dispersed by warring nations centuries ago, domesticated and tamed for human benefit after they emerged from their shelters and reestablished society only years after the bombs fell.

"And with them mankind has been pushed forward thousands of years, and that was a revolution unto itself."

"Of course Archer, but remember, history always repeats."


	5. Chapter 1

Having skirted across the globe several times in the back of a transport aircraft, the soldier knew the taut knot in his stomach well. Through his head went through the statistics of this particular form of travel, seaplanes not usually having a bad reputation for being dangerous, air travel being one of the safer modes of transportation. However no matter how many times he had been whisked away in a cargo plane full of men such as him, the symptoms of sickness took him over in the same fashion as the plane broke the cloud layer. This bout of sickness was remedied in the smallest ways this time around, pills and the benefits of civilian sector airplanes a far cry from the metal seats on the C-130s that had been in use and renovated again and again for hundreds of years. Unlike those noisy, crowded flights, the occupants aboard that particular sea plane maintained a silence between pilot and passenger, much to the dismay of the latter.

It had been the first time in years that he had stepped aboard a plane as a civilian, the first occasion having been the one that whisked him away to Vermillion's Military Academy, the echo of rowdy servicemen like the one he once was filled his head in lieu of the unnatural silence the Rocket pilot had maintained. At first he tried to open up conversations with the unspeaking pilot, if only to test his social skills with a civilian after nearly a decade of military mingling, however the invocations failed and he was left with the barely there whispers of flights past and the thoughts of his current objective.

He hadn't intended to ask questions with his time with his new Boss, as a soldier he wasn't meant to ask questions…Or rather the soldier he once was. All the red lights and the sirens had gone off in his psyche, the fibers of his body telling him to not partake in the business that he had once protected against. He wasn't a mercenary; he was just an honorable field medic serving his people… Who was also looking for financial assistance outside of the military.

'_This is the definition of being mercenary!_' Spoke his mind as his hand was gripped and shaken by Giovanni, sealing the contract. Still, he had an objective which he had to fulfill and he had no intention of deviating from his current path now, men like Giovanni never forget unfulfilled promises. His nerves were otherwise focused on the present, and more centrally the lump in his stomach, though relief was close at hand.

For the first time in several hours, the pilot had spoken, his thick Kantonian accent breaking the reverie that Mikita had put upon himself in the effort to distract himself from the silence and the escalating knot in his stomach. The disorientation that came over the lieutenant had passed, and an idle glance over his shoulder and out of the cabin had yielded the reason to the conversations that the pilot had partaken in. The green blur of land passed by the level watercraft was only contrasted by the blue of the beach, the sky, and the white smears from the clouds. A textbook tropical forest egressed inland enough to touch the horizon. Only occasional bumps in the land with the equally green mountains and hills broke the carpet of trees.

He knew the region better than most, it was a place touched upon by the academy only in a peculiar, though in the end, a strategically meaningless fact:

A few centuries ago, before even his forefather's time, before Pokémon, there was a United Nation and a Soviet Union.

It was the war to end all wars, as was the title that the professor had so graciously placed upon that short, extremely devastating, conflict. Apparently if the history books are to be trusted, the first shot, or rather missile launch, was from the island which was once known as Cuba. Foolishly, in a show of might, the nation called the 'United States of America' had placed a good portion of their Atlantic Navy near the island in a blockade. However, in that arrogant movement, a strategic mistake was had and they were sitting ducks for a surprise bombardment from Cuban anti-ship missiles, supplied by the Soviets, followed by a turkey shoot by the Soviet submariners. In an hour, the blockaded fleet was sunk, and the nation it belonged to was suddenly at a loss at what to do with so much of their naval power destroyed. War was of course declared, and in a move that rendered the blockading nation unable to fully respond, the Cubans bombarded America with nuclear weapons as allied powers across the oceans started throwing the same type of ordnance back and forth all over their continents in retaliation. Mutually assured destruction had followed throughout the world, alliances kept and broken as fire reigned from the sky in a sickening display of science.

That was the crash course on pre-Pokémon history they had given to the academy, instead focusing on contemporary matters, much to the dismay of a quote that survived in graffiti and books despite the war: History always repeats itself.

History accounted one of the very first neutron bombs fell on Guyana, an airbase placed here by the U.S being in a great position to counter-attack the Cubans and the Soviet interests in the area, and, much to the imagination of the lieutenant, he was guessing he would be transporting something of historical value over the ocean he just crossed.

Maybe it was a petrified remains of a Soviet or U.S pilot, or perhaps one of the many extinct Pokémon species that survived in the wilderness, but either way he didn't care.

"Booster 3-1-4 you are cleared for landing on waterway eight." Mikita's own headset had picked up the transmission, the pilot confirming the message seconds later.

The beaches were lined with shacks, town houses, fishing huts and the like, the shoddy construction evident from even afar. There were occupants combing the sand in their daily routines, barely taking note of the sea plane flying over them. Many of them had fished for the abundant Magikarp and Remoraid that existed on the shores, the extraordinary surplus that was provided had usually kept hunger down in this area of the world, and, asides from the history and illicit, though stable, anarchy that had settled upon this land: a beautiful country backed by the many rivers that flowed inward.

Mikita groaned in his mind, knowing more often what they say about these locations was drastically exaggerated. No matter how much briefings or plans were dressed up to make missions appear like day trips, it was never enough to dissuade the usual disposition he wore.

If all went to plan, he wasn't supposed to go romping through those rivers and jungles unless it came to a wild goose chase. Though that was unlikely, the object he was delivering wasn't alive…at least to his knowledge. He was trained to be a medic, and he had more than once kept people and Pokémon alike alive for long periods of time, however he hadn't known what he was to be keeping stable during this occasion. In the back of his mind he knew it was more a matter of transportation than maintenance. If it was truly something alive he was sure there was to be more people transporting it than him.

The airplane had begun its approach pattern to one of the more developed towns on the coast to where a truck carrying medical supplies was waiting, the dress up bolstered by the field doctor fatigues he had been provided by a scab in a national aid organization. The medicine in the van was authentic, the fake ID he was given was authentic, and his skills were very much authentic. Though it was all just a ploy in moving a plan forward, as was the situation that the UNGA checkpoints surrounding the dig site had presented to his new employer.

'The UNG scavengers will take the research right out of our hands if they are allowed even a whiff of the discovery lieutenant,' said the Boss as he detailed his predicament... He hadn't been as open to describe what he was exactly delivering, but he was clear enough to say that if Mikita hadn't delivered it, then he would've used excessive force to guarantee that the prize was safe in his possession.

'If it means sparing a few lives and earning a wholesome penny while doing so, why not?'

The knot in the lieutenant's gut had alleviated a bit as the slightest of g-forces was put upon the plane by its downward trajectory toward the town. It was a frontier town built over the shell of the old one as it was abandoned in the 1960's. It was one which tax dollars back in the UNG Central Regions went to in hope of improving conditions across the world; however the tax deductible donations were always never to be found, as was the reason in many of the lieutenant's deployments. It was a shanty fishing town with a good enough dock that filled out the frontal screen on the seaplane. It was a large shanty town at that, the colors of rust and orange a stark contrast to the blue and green that had so vibrantly surrounded it.

In one last vain attempt to talk to his pilot as he leveled out his aircraft for the final approach, Mikita remarked on how it reminded him of the shoddy construction of some of the houses of his hometown that had adorned the green canopy in North Hoenn. This time the pilot had responded in a slightly annoyed gruff, the plane having but seconds before contact to the water.

"The second this lands Ruskie," Of course the pilot had heard the light slur in his speech, "You're going to do whatever the Boss has planned for you, and never see me again. Comprende?" He hadn't needed a response, his attention refocused on the water tarmac slowly creeping up to them, Mikita more than aware that he had failed in the particular task in conversation.

Giovanni had struck the lieutenant as a mob boss, and that wasn't far from the definition, however he hadn't been stoic enough to expect his henchmen were the thugs that made up a stereotypical mafia. Of course perhaps the pilot was just an outlier, the annoyed lines in his face having been there long before this particular hour's long flight.

'Perhaps Winona could've actually taught me something about riding…' He thought back to earlier days at home, his own flying-type snug at home amongst the trees of his home town, and the convenience that 'Grandma' Winona had so happily capitalized on in her profession.

He was pulled out of his thoughts as the vibrations of water contact reverberated through the plane, the spray touching the windows and rocking the aircraft to a degree. The landing was uneventful, the pilot's job nearly done as they drifted closer to an idly waiting dock. The landing crew idly waiting by, locals ready to refuel the plane and transport would be tourists, however Mikita had been no tourist and before the plane's engine had fully stopped he readjusted the slacked bag around his body and tossed aside his headset as the door was unlocked.

The pilot had shown weak concern, barely turning his head from the instruments on the dashboard and shutting down the plane's engine, though he hadn't cared any less for the safety precautions of this particular passenger.

So much like the safety of jumping out of a moving airplane, the lieutenant went to the wind, his feet barely coming in contact with the weathered wooden dock in an effort to just get away from the less than welcoming pilot. The plane progressed forward until its momentum settled and idly sat on the water as the locals began to perform the maintenance that was required, however by the time they had asked about the passenger, he was long gone and progressing toward the town.

The stress in his stomach had subsided well enough, though perhaps his senses were just distracted from the smell of the town he had just wandered into and the jet lag he was well used to. The streets had been damp with whatever natural matter there was, much to the detriment of the clean sheen of the jeans that came with his outfit.

There hadn't been a checkpoint for outgoing and incoming traffic; there wasn't much traffic either way bar the occasional foreign scientific team. But he hadn't needed a customs agent anyway; it was far from the first time he had wandered into a foreign country, and of course he had just been fine when neither he nor the country spoke a language they could both understand. Those deployments turned out mostly fine, and the occupants of the fishing town weren't threatening in the least to him, nor did they have reason to. The red cross on the thin white mask covering half his face was enough of an indicator he intended to be a benefactor, not the soldier that lay beneath that mask.

* * *

"Si, there." The naïve garage manager had idly pointed to the white van and tossed the lieutenant the keys, the heat that was barely fended off by an overworked fan doing a number to the man's state of mind. However his Slakoth had been just fine from this heat as it idly hung from one of the exposed wooden supports on the ceiling.

"Your Slakoth has a gash on one of its arms."

The foreigner had talked too fast for the man, he questionatively looking up at the man who spoke with his slurred accent.

In close company, he had tried his best to avert his Siberian ancestry away from him. Mikita had turned into Micky and he suppressed his accent with the sound of silence. However it wasn't something he dwelled upon out in the crowds or when it was a frivolous act of resistance.

"It. Cut. Arm." The medic came up to point to the Pokémon, his free hand mimicking a cutting motion on the point arm. It was an easy fix considerably, perhaps nothing more than the result of slipping from a skewered piece of wood, though the lack of response from the Slakoth probably didn't warrant any attention from his owner. He glanced up at it, nodding when he saw what the lieutenant did.

"Wait." The parking garage was mostly empty, save for a few ATVS and Jeeps, so it hadn't been hard for him to get to the van that Rocket had delivered, dressed up in full international aid colors. The contents of the van were just as authentic even at a glance as the doors were opened. The stench of sterility rushed from the van as it was opened, the medical supplies all cleanly organized and stowed in various containers and cupboards adorning the van. That level of organization however was soon discarded as soon as he began fiddling through the shelves.

The van was essentially a roaming hospital on closer inspection, however it was best to keep that secret in such an impoverished area, the likelihood of being looted by some hooligan was a risk not worth being taken in his mind, even though the van was not at all a critical resource.

"It's not like everyone in a third world region wants your head." He fumbled with a roll of gauze, cursing and mumbling over some leftover sentiment from earlier trips to foreign lands.

The officers above him always spoke of how the people of that particular region weren't the enemy, and that some rouge trainer, extremist group, or exploding population of some type of Pokémon species was. More often than not it didn't matter who was the enemy to people like him, and he shot at whoever took a swing at him or his allies. The shots he always took, if any, were true according to his targets. Even though he was a man of aid, not a spec-ops hard man or a marksman, he had very much done things contrary to his title. More often than not however he was left treating enemy survivors and not injuries on his own side, so it had been counter-productive to not make those shots count when he had happened to be in an engagement.

The lieutenant returned to the garage keeper with familiar supplies in his trade of work, clearly showing them to the curious man before gently beckoning his Slakoth down from the racks.

It had been a long time, but he was once a trainer of sorts. He hadn't remembered the last decade of his life with exceptional clarity, let alone what happened before that, but he remembered his own Pokémon, and then something about few and far between battles with a childhood friend and a short journey in an attempt to be the very best. However even though the memories passed, the skills attained kept with him and his understanding of Pokémon proved only beneficial.

"Don't tell anyone I'm giving away free health care, alright?" The garage keeper hardly understood the light hearted comment, but he seemed just barely appreciative for what he was doing, enough so to tell his Slakoth to ease its lazy arms around his benefactor in his native language.

It was a quick procedure, just a quick smear of anti-infectent and a quick wrapping of gauze, however the seasoned medic doubt the Slakoth would react, given the species unique vitality.

He quickly departed thereafter, his medical mask not even dropped to allow the garage keeper a proper look at the gracious helper, the van happily bumping along the dirt roads inside the town, competing with rugged Toyotas, Chevys, and an armada of modified bikes and mounts, the latter of which shooting him angry glances at the inadequacy of his driving skills. Still, he had been in worse scenarios, and the dent left by overtaking a Donaphan was as minor as they came… at least in his experiences with road side bombs which he had so happily re-accounted with nostalgia.

'In speaking of cell phones.'

His free hand went to the back pocket of the issued jeans, drawing a cellular device of his own while he was on the thought of those remotely detonated bombs. His employer had advised him to check in when he had entered the region.

"The spoils of war." He remarked to the item in question, glancing at the rugged device. It had been a PokéNav, some modified model he had "procured" from some pirates early that year, the straps that had been added to it effectively making it a stand in for the GPS's that had been military issue for Army troopers. An invaluable tool in the field, if one's military relied on technology like that. One of many of the items he had scavenged during the tours, the Devon Corp. markings now worn away and battered by battle.

Mikita wasn't a Mandibuzz, contrary to the titles given to him as he went over the deceased in many a post-battle landscape and the morgue. It wasn't looting by anyone's account and there wasn't much stopping him to do so, though he never went for money or personal items.

"_Just for the sake to see what's there_." Was his reasoning whenever he shipped home scavenged bits of exotic clothing or miscellaneous items back to some store house back West. Some of those items chalked up nothing but a story of their acquisition, some actually made him a pretty penny.

The habit was not something he was going to knock.

His free hand fiddled with the screen as best as it could in third world traffic, but it finally navigated its ways to the call list, and dialed up one of the only numbers in it.

The ringing and vibrating was short and it was clear the person on the other end had been waiting.

"Who is this?" His voice was a whisper amid the horrid sounds of the bustle outside of the van.

"Mikita Noelle, Sir." He brought the device closer to his mouth, rolling up the window in between a lulled moment in his driving in an attempt to deafen the bustle of the streets. Every few feet were a merchant and his cart or some amateur Pokémon battle taking up some significant portion of the road and the already clogging traffic.

"Where are you going?" It was silly code speak, as if they intended he had been captured and someone else had assumed his identity already. It was just one of a myriad of buffers the lieutenant had experienced with them already, however he hadn't complained if it meant that they were satisfied.

"On the road to Viridian City." The blue bulb on the Nav pulsed, denoting the connection strength.

"Hey, I don't know if you can get a good lock on me yet, but I'm in the region now and egressing toward the site Mister…." Mikita trailed off; the voice hadn't been Giovanni's, however he wasn't surprised. His handler would've probably been one of the field executives he often saw around Rocket sites like the one he was going to.

"You will refer to me as Archer, lieutenant." He had sounded slightly annoyed, unhappy even. The ex-lieutenant wasn't a psychologist though, his attention more focused to the road as opposed to his handler.

"And you will refer to me as Micky, Archer." He wasn't a lieutenant anymore; the papers he had handed off to Giovanni had made that clear enough. He was intent of holding some sort of honor despite the dishonor he had been accused of, and so he respected the loss of his rank and position. However it was a fruitless endeavor, the title had become the name that was implanted into his psyche. It was peculiar when he found that Giovanni was always addressed by his first name, or otherwise "Boss" to those he had held fear over, however he hadn't fret over that and instead dwelled on contract relevant questions.

"Whatever, mercenary." He flinched at the word, "I assume there have been no difficulties yet?" His voice was cold, though young as far as he could tell. A junior executive. It hadn't played well in the lieutenant's mind, that such a young man was handling his situation, however his probable inexperience left wiggle room.

"The van has been located, nothing tampered with, and fuel should be good for a two way trip." A rough speed bump hit, rambling the contents in the back and sending a shock through the man's body. "… If it survives the trip."

"That is your concern, not mine, lieutenant."

"Hey, I could send this op. south real easy without proper guidance, Archer." Venom was spat, however that didn't mean much when the threat was transmitted to someone a thousand miles away. A man of only twenty four, he still had an abundance of feistiness left over (as well as developing) from both youth and soldierdom.

"For your sake you shouldn't," The lieutenant had no doubt he was some sort of executive at the way he talked; the disdain in his voice had denoted that the cronies that he usually ordered around weren't as vocal.

"What exactly am I picking up again, Archer? The Boss was vague and I was tired when I was down at Saffron." Only twelve hours ago he had embarked from Kanto, and it felt all too much like a routine patrol. As he learned, those routine rounds around the city always turned out to be anything but. He figured he was entitled to some information, however he wasn't an intelligence operative, and his prodding came up with marginal results.

"A bio-chemical package enclosed in a protective casing, lieutenant."

"And that package is?" He swerved around an idling Ponyta, it intently disobeying its owner by creating a disruption in the street, the van creating wiggle room as it curved.

"Something very fragile and something you are better off not knowing."

"Hey, if I know what it is, there is less of a chance I could fuck up."

"You're better off not knowing LT."

There was an answer in that statement, despite how it beat around the bush, it was probably something worth the effort to smuggle it past the UNG. He knew the routine though, if this package was as politically volatile as they implied it was his would be captors would want answers that they had not given him.

"Yeah, alright…." He pulled into another dirt road leading out of the city, still crowded with vendors and locals going about their day. It wasn't his position to question the hand giving him 400,000 dollars, but he had the right to make sure he followed up on his end of the bargain as best as he could, something that his client wasn't making entirely easy given their dodgyness. However it was too early to tell and his nerves had just now settled down after the flight.

"I think I can deal for now."

"Good."

"Is there anything interesting on the way to the site, Archer? If traffic clears up and I don't have any road kill," Up and down the street, natives were still packed on the street, the motorized, pedestrian, and Pokémon all forming an organic wave of traffic. However it was especially packed when a day to day occurrence happened before the lieutenant: The sacking of road kill. A rather sickly looking Tauros had been rammed into by some scooter and was promptly put down on the spot and scavenged. Even though the van had kept a steady speed, the event had passed even before he had.

Pokémon here were held in a more practical regard than they were up North and the East, a long time ago the word animal and Pokémon had been separated in a good portion of the world, and people either protested or looked the other way when Pokémon were used as a common food or a source of materials. They were treated much more humanely, regarded as individuals at the same or sometimes even above humans, but still there were occasions where the lieutenant had brought back a jacket made from a Floatzel our Croconaw from the deployments and subsequently fetched a rather exuberant price for it. There were always those sorts of people around, and with their existence Mikita was able to survive two weeks without any income by selling off the war treasures he had pried from the hands of dead pirates or abandoned frontier outposts.

"According to reports, not much activity on your former friends' part." Archer talked about the UNG presence in the area, evidently this operation had been taking place before the lieutenant was discharged, which meant more than a month. They had set up check points surrounding an area of interest and had promptly stopped all traffic coming in or out. The UNGA had swooped in and set up a perimeter in an area round the research group and kept to themselves, checking all incoming and out coming traffic; however they were also in such a position to hinder them as well as the Boss had noted.

"Nothing in the way of local resistance however, at least at the moment."

Again from that same pre-historic crash course in history, Mikita knew what he was referring to when he said local resistance. They were native people who survived colonization in one century, and nuclear holocaust in another to an extent. Radiation played with man as it did animals of course, and it wasn't surprising that they had been clinically diagnosed as insane. In fact, as the lieutenant had reasoned, he was going to be deployed to this area anyway with the escalating attacks by this local clan. He might've also referenced the local species as well, nothing out of the way of regular tropical species. Bidoof, Buizels, birds of varying types, had inhabited the region. Stemmed from the livestock and the local pest species hundreds of years ago, they became modern Pokémon, much more feral than those around the cities and the more developed regions. Their intelligence rose above their roots and it was a common occurrence across the world that small bands of Pokémon raided ill-protected establishments for myriads of items, no doubt that this sort of area was plagued by that event.

"The plan stays lieutenant, roads should be intact to the site and you should be able to slide pass the checkpoint. Is that understood?" The top of the scrubs he had on was still more or less the typical blue shade that many medical personnel wore in the International Hospitals and aid groups, the ID card that would be soon attached to his chest denoting him as a Doctor. The guise was convincing at glance, however he was combat medic, not an agent of espionage. He also had been wearing something…..extra though, it snugging his chest and hanging on by well tightened straps. That particular piece of clothing he had borrowed from a Jordanian Police Officer and never returned.

"Easy for you to say, Archer." Normally his conversations on radios and phones were chalked up with one word exchanges or strings of numbers. However he was freed of that world and instead of "Rogers" and "Delta-Theta-Eta", he had taken the liberty of actually using his personality.

"As I said, that is your problem." He scowled in hopes it would transmit, but the interference was strong, and the doubt that it was received was stronger. "Contact me once you get to the site."

"Nice to meet you too."

The call had ended on Archer's end and the lieutenant's focus distributed back onto the road. Some parent-figure in his psyche had chided him for multi-tasking in such a situation, but he brushed it off. It didn't stop him from displeasing the locals however.

He blamed the lack of traffic control, thankful that forward was seemingly the only direction he had to go. However the speedometer was constantly jumping with the flow of traffic density, and then he was reminded of how rush hour traffic felt as he left the coast behind.


	6. Chapter 2

"What's your name?" The UNGA Captain had asked for a name to give the pale, strikingly sharp, face that belonged to the driver of the van, some black hair poking out the back of the sage green cap he wore.

The road out of the coastal town and inland had literally been a pain in the ass. Every bump against the ill-managed dirt road more suited for an ATV as opposed to a city van. As inappropriate the fact was however, Mikita's ass was well weathered by occasions of injuries and prolonged stints across desert sands in less than comfy jeep seats. However his mood had taken the brunt of the long trek.

He knew he was always being watched, the glow of eyes and the occasional ruffle of the jungle's canopy denoted to its inhabitants. Not human of course, at least, none that he'd expected, but the Pokémon residents.

There had been a guide of the region in the military for the sake of population culling that he had glanced over once before. He knew that none of the species were abnormally dangerous as far as tropical areas go, the typical Nidokings and Queens of note, however there had always been that overbearing ferocity that these particular examples of Pokémon had than their counter-parts back on the main land. Evolution made way for that of course, Nidoking or Drapions in Sinnoh or Kanto tolerated human presence more than their cousins here, so he had been prepared in the event he had accidently ran over a Nidoran and its mother was nearby.

He had made a stop before he came into the sight of the check point, clutching the wooden grip of his own variety of health insurance, seeing as the one he previously had was revoked by the government. The coach gun was "antiquated" according to the officer whom cleared the particular item he had procured, and he had no trouble shipping it home or carrying it from the warehouse to the Guyanese forest he had trotted into. It was at that point a little over a thousand years old and a simple contraption easily outdone by what he had handled less than half a month ago, but it was the only thing he had on him, and he wasn't about to bring his companion over in such an exotic stint for his own defense. The foot long knife in his boot was further insurance, it being easily hidden from view in his boots.

The twelve gauge shotgun was unloaded and squeezed into a roll of a medical stretcher in the back of his van, away from the eyes of the UNG Army men at the checkpoint. It wasn't that carrying a weapon was illegal, especially in such a region, but he had reasoned that if he himself was manning that checkpoint, he would be concerned.

The back of the van was poked open and two camouflage clad soldiers had glanced around, a Houndour growling at the van's general direction while it was tied to a post.

The lieutenant had poked at his ID card, loosely hanging on his neck from a string.

"Tom Cassidy eh?" The CO of the group had stated the fake name, his weapon lax around his back and his boonie cap damp with a rainfall that had been off and on for the last few hours. Weathered, blank faced, a textbook Captain as denoted by the golden bars on his shoulder patch.

"_Da_." He lowered his mask for the first time since he entered the country, his face still clean shaven from the barber shop visit just days before he was cast out and his army cap hiding his similarly clean cut hair. He had gone out on the prediction that the officer on site would notice the particular haircut, so his face was hidden for the most part; his silver eyes the only thing seen between the cap and the medical mask. The Houndour must've sensed more, it never ceasing to gnarl at the driver.

However its advice was disregarded, and the troopers lazily glanced around his medical equipment.

The troopers poking around in the back had cleared away, signaling their CO with thumbs up, the coach gun eluding their search.

"You Russian?" He asked, observing the ID card through the fading light of the day.

"The voice gave it away, sir?" Mikita's accent poked out, the gravel in the back of his throat never wanting to go away.

"Nah, the eyes." There had been no visible obstruction stopping him from proceeding down the path, however the light glimmered as the Captain signaled an okay to the gate keeper and the air was charged and discharged for but a second, the van's various components going awry for a second.

"You got a Baltoy somewhere?" Mikita knew of the trick, checkpoints were often quickly established by using the ability of psychic-types. Through metaphysical walls or telekinesis, invisible barriers were established and the unwary or the suicidal would ram into what appeared to be thin air. It was the equivalent of ballistic glass, and much more dynamic given a situation. It had been an interesting adaptation of the domestication of Pokémon for usage in the military. Only 200 years ago did the UNG Army stopped actively culling dangerous species of Pokémon, and now they fought side by side for the betterment of their causes. The synergy wasn't perfect, some people were less than adamant to allow animals to fight alongside them; however what they offered was more than justifiable reason to allow them into the ranks. Mikita had been a trainer once, so he hadn't any complaints about the symbiosis, but those Pokémon he had fought against were fearsome beyond belief.

"How'd you know?" The CO was a tad surprised; the glass wall technique was something not widely known outside of the military and though the Pokémon in question was unseen.

"I ran into one of those walls once…On assignment in Orre." He conjured a fake story, satisfying the captain's question.

"Hah," He faked an amused laugh, pointing down the road, "You're cleared to go through, best get down to that camp Rocket has set up before nightfall; the locals get a bit more antsy at night, Doc." The journey from the coastal town had taken a majority of the afternoon; though the sun was still giving off enough light for the sky to be blue the prospect of traveling in a foreign rainforest was not appealing at best. The van's engine was gunned and started again; counter acting the sudden psychic surge that came through seconds before.

"Is there anything I should know about these Rocketeers?" He played the part of the naïve benefactor for his benefit, prodding what he could out of the soldiers that he used to be.

"Nothing much, they're just a bunch of scientist that need a bit protection, don't know why they've hold up there for the last few weeks, must be something very tenuous happening down there." There was always that unspoken truth that was never given away to the public; he knew the routine well whenever he had spoken to the local populace of some far away region. They didn't need to know that their town was being used as bait or that someone's death could've been avoided. Ignorance is bliss, but the lieutenant had been on both sides of that quote.

"Yeah, they just called me down on short notice." He waved the CO off and then pushed down the pedal, the traction on the dirt roads terrible due to the rains that constantly came and went. He glanced back at the contents; the soldiers hadn't touched much, the stretcher roll that held his gun unhampered with.

It hadn't been long, the last mile or so between the camp and the checkpoint was closed quickly, Zubats following the van into the makeshift, shoddy camp.

Asides from the bat entourage, he was greeted by one of Rocket's iconic grunts, a Raticate at his side and a flashlight fending off the increasingly darkening visibility. He had been covered in black, as per Rocket's unusual dress code; however it was good material and it helped pick Rocketeers out from the crowd. Truth be told, it hadn't been the first time he had assisted Rocket, some obscure hostage situation in Fiorre came to the front of his mind. Though the situation was difference, the man appeared to be the same.

"You Lieutenant Noelle?" He raised his flashlight into the driver's seat side.

"It's just Micky, Sir." He raised his hand to avert the flash, and the Rocketeer did the same in a different manner. It was an informal salute, a brief second of reverence. They stared at each for a second, but his conduct as a military man pinged as he remembered this hadn't been a higher officer saluting him, and that he was indeed that ranking officer. He awkwardly shifted his right arm as he turned to face the man as best as he could, returning the salute in a sharp movement before the Rocket's hand waved off the Zubats that hovered in the air.

Rocket had always dealt with pest Pokémon that often dabbled around in their facilities, their resourcefulness denoted by the amount they wielded, further proof provided by the screeching of Zubats filling the air above them. This area had been a cleared out field, the stumps remnant of the portion of forest that had been there a month before replaced by a tent city on top of a damp dirt foundation.

Why this area was special was beyond the lieutenant's knowledge; however he didn't want to know considering a small army of Rocketeers equipped with equally numerous rats and bats had encompassed this rough acre of land.

"We've been expecting you Micky; our lead scientist in the camp will fill you in lieutenant."

He responded with a confirmatory grunt, pulling away and into the gloomy camp.

The colors ranged from brown to the army sage of the tents, a white glow provided by temporary lamps put around the camp. Despite the nipping cold of the approaching evening, there hadn't been any fires put up, the proximity it would be to the tents having too many repercussions. However there was room enough for the van to squeeze in between the medical tent and one of the bunk tents.

Those dulled colors had bombarded the lieutenant's vision however his eyes caught relief when his first steps out of the van were quickly intercepted by a figure of white.

The figure was immediately identified as a scientist of sort, the white coat only touched by wet mud on the bottom rims. He hadn't been mopping about the camp, but instead held up in some clean, well regulated tent.

He held out a rubber gloved hand and the lieutenant returned the gesture, the shake weak on the scientist's end. His blue hair was tied into a ponytail, the lines on his forehead stressed and tired.

"James."

"Micky." It was a short introduction. Professionals as they were not much more was needed. They instead pressed on toward the center of the camp, talking as they went.

"I don't know where the Boss found you," In a brash move he tossed the ID card on Mikita's chest off, knowing of its true validity, a loose Rattata regarding it and scurrying off with the plastic card.

"But you're our best shot of getting Dreamstone back to the Cinnabar labs." He talked on, unknowing that the lieutenant had any idea what he had actually known and was privy to regarding his assignment. The lieutenant kept his silence though, the dissection of his words more effective to him than the naivety of the situation.

"The genetic material can't be extracted here; however the specimen has been perfectly preserved in what we can only make a hypothesis that it is some sort of strain of evolution stone,"

The evolution stones, another offset of the neutron bombs that fell over three centuries ago. Those stones had once been some form of coal, gemstone, or any other type of mineral that had been exposed to radiation for one too many years. Their linkage to the neutron bombs made clear the second one of the many species came in contact with one of those stones, proving for an evocative business opportunity for some. In recent years stones had been synthesized by none other than corporations and companies such as Devon or Rocket, however there were some dealers who went out of their way to acquire pure strains, and perhaps that was the original reason why this Rocket funded group was so far inland in this forest. However the excavators and the conveyers were discarded and the current intent of the group was now something far more radically different.

'But something preserved inside a stone?' It wasn't hard to imagine, most of the stones had abnormal growth rates before their energy was absorbed by a species that could benefit from them, but the idea had harkened the lieutenant back to some old movie about dinosaurs and was taken with a grain of salt.

"Is the specimen unwieldy?" It was his job to carry it back to port, concealing it from anyone and everyone. Perhaps that was the only thing he needed to ask, but he hadn't stopped himself from persisting.

"That thing going to explode in my van?"

"It's not much larger than a foot in the width and length, not much heavier than 15 pounds." He took an unamused glance at the lieutenant, one eyebrow arched in question.

"Just don't let it touch any Pokémon and you won't have to worry about any…discharges."

His voice was tired, his eyes strained. He hadn't needed any stupid questions. In fact, had he been sober from his fatigue, maybe he would've not answered any of the questions at all. Answers and information flowed from his mouth though, his mental constraints all but finished as the Guyana sun had set somewhere further down the tree line. He too, had fallen, but Mikita was much like the moon to his back, rising instead.

James had droned on about specifications, technical aspects, and the general hampering of having worked the last month in a hastily constructed camp.

"Dreamstone…" They had swerved in and out of various tents to get into the main attraction, the expansive tent totally covered and bolted to the ground in an effort to perform as some sort of fortress. "What is it?"

"It's an evolution stone which we do not have the capacity to categorize, though what testing we can do has shown that it is highly anomalous. We think it formed when-"

"No," The lieutenant had cut him off, halting in front of the tent. "What's in the Dreamstone?"

It was a brazen question, one that seemed out of place for the delivery man, though much like how he provided his drivel on the particular concentration of graphite of the specimen, the information burst through his mind, nothing holding it back.

"Let me show you." One of his rubber gloved hands hand pushed open the tent, a flood of yellow light bursting through the increasing darkness.

The dirt floor hadn't been level, and it turned out that there had been a giant hole in the center of the large tent's space. However it existed no more, covered by a makeshift Plexiglas floor that a handful of other similarly dressed scientist scurried about on. The place was basic ally a small lab, bar the evocative glowing stone set in a glass case in the center. It had been propped up on some scientific pedestal, metallic hands holding it in the air. The scientists only regarded them for a second, but instead of greetings they hurriedly refocused into playing with their instruments.

"That's the Dreamstone?"

The trainer he used to be knew what an evolution stone was, whenever he had romped about Western Hoenn or near Lavaridge he came across such stones. His Staraptor couldn't have benefited from the traditional effects of the stones; however they served to fetch him an occasional penny whenever he came back to town. This particular one was peculiar, not in color or in shape (for in all regards it was probably a Light Stone or a well weathered Water Stone), but for the pink smear barely visible from his position at the entrance several feet away.

"Quite so." They approached the rest of the scientist wary of the lieutenant. The casing of the pedestal was cylindrical, the trickery off the lighting illuminating all the way through the stone and giving clarity to the pink smear inside of it. It was a distinctive shape, a distinguishable head well rounded and pimple like, however the rest of its "body" was small. It was the vague form of a paw print that gave the preserved object away.

"Is that…a Cat?"

Dogs, Rats, Parakeets, Squirrels, Wolves, Gold Fish, Cats, the list of "extinct" species was boggling. None of the like survived this long into history. If not for the nuclear war that destroyed them, it was their descendants, their mutated offspring that did them out.

One example had…survived apparently, if not in a malformed way.

He had known what they were, not many people had, however tracing back genetic material was something a medic like him was supposed to know. How vague was the fact, he had knowledge of how the world was before Pokémon, genetically, and in violent history. Wherein people nowadays had shaped their lives around the mutated animals, he had the fortune to realize that man had once been the dominant species on Earth. Some argued they still were, however when there had been a whale so malformed by radiation that it had "created" his home region, or when the Alakazam line of species was able to move items via some form of quantum entanglement, he knew the fact had a lot against it.

He had pondered too far once when he was in his studies. Mikita's imagination once took him back to a time before the nukes and the hottest, Cold War: When people alone lived in solitude with their domesticized animals and built up a civilization that just had barely survived Armageddon, it was then that he knew that somehow, they had been greater men then compared to the present. People now had built their culture around these Pokémon, something he sourly knew first hand.

The Absol tribe that had occupied just north of Fortree had become all but the reliance of his hometown. The Absol, in a gesture of peace, had often sent over one of their tribe over whenever something amiss was going to happen. These warnings always came true, and so certain trees and houses were adjusted accordingly. Some trees pruned, some trees bolstered, saving lives. However once and a while someone would go missing, and the only species that was capable of kidnapping was of course the Absol in the area.

Some sought to hunt them down in revenge, however doing so would stop the warnings of disaster from their tribe. So it had been mutually decided that it wasn't worth it, his hometown at the whim of Pokémon.

The lost were mourned for and the living had made themselves comfortable with such a warning system in place.

Perhaps one of the reasons he had joined the Government's Army was to prove he was greater than those Absol and Skamory that had nitpicked at his town.

He did accomplish this particular task; however his UNGA affiliation was done for and he stood in front of what the Rocket scientist beside him was regarding as the Holy Grail.

"It was…" He took a second, tilting his head, "It is goodness to honest original feline of sorts."

"So a cat?"

"Domesticized feline from the before times." The scientist spoke as if he corrected him, but what Mikita had said wasn't wrong.

"A cat." He had taken the liberty of the moment of silence after his final answer to retighten his medical mask. It had gotten hot and musky under his breath, though he hadn't bothered to remove it. It hadn't been of the fear of getting some airborne illness or inhaling some Gloom's musk, but it was just too rather hide who he was, for all a piece of cloth could do. The Boss had stressed that he was only a deliveryman, and so he had negotiated with himself that he wouldn't need to add anything else to that job title.

Mikita wasn't a detective, nor was he interested in what they were going to do with it, but theories sprung up in his mind automatically. Granted it didn't look like much other than a pink smear, it had been an actual preserved specimen from hundreds of years in the past. With such an object he could've compared past and present for his machinations. No doubt that was the whole plan Giovanni had, at least how he could see it. Genetic engineering had been….finicky when it came to Pokémon in his experience, most examples either dying or having to be killed.

Predictions were tossed aside as he was pulled back out from his thoughts. "James, Archer on line three." One of the scientist looked up from a console. Mikita had forgotten to call in, so it was probable that this was him checking up on his "Mercenary".

"Put him on." There had been a screen on the far end of the room, blank, but that was quickly overridden by a par quality video stream of feed transmitting from far away from there.

His face was a pale white and baby faced amidst a background of what he could only discern as some sort of ill-lit situation room in the Saffron building. Faceless people were bustling around the room, fiddling with computers and keeping eyes on television screens.

"Your handler Mikita." James had been so nice to introduce the already too familiar man, his voice being enough. They came to the front of the TV, James in particular standing at attention.

"You didn't check in Mikita." Candy blue fluffy hair, milky eyes, a baby face and a black uniform with an emblazoned R.

"Not even a hello from my handler?"

"It's much too late to play with me lieutenant." He had turned to glare at Mikita through the screen, quickly switching to his lead scientist. "Report James?"

He had quickly glanced at the clipboard he had picked up on the way to the screen, "No complications. We've done all we can on this end and we've sent what we can through the sat links. The specimen should be ready for transportation by the next eight hours. I do heed you to be careful with it, this this is as fragile as an hourglass."

"Correct James. If what I have been told by Giovanni is correct, it holds your future, so I presume you'd do good to keep it steady hands."

Was that an insult? Mikita had thought, but he swallowed any response and only grunted angrily, "Duly noted."

* * *

It took only a half an hour after that for Archer and James, the lead scientist who never really asked to come into possession of a preserved cat carcass, to reiterate what the flyer had advertised and asked for: Get the item from point A to point B as seamlessly as you could. However that seamlessness the lieutenant had exerted was above what the Rocket expedition could muster after a month in the rain, and he had come a full night early.

Archer hadn't taken kindly over the fact that the lieutenant knew of the object now, but it was of decreasing importance.

"I'm actually a Doc. James."

And with that comment the lieutenant was whisked away to the medical tent he had parked his van next to, unloaded most of the international aid gear, and promptly brandished his shotgun as the van was taken by concierge to some makeshift garage. The mechanics that were once working on upholding the excavating gear were now idle and alone in the early Guyana night and had happily taken the van to refuel and fiddle with.

"What's with the shotgun, lieutenant?" James had very much intrusively asked as he himself was propped up on the raised medical stretcher. It had been lying idle on the table where the surgeon's instruments would be, the double barrels unhinged from the stock and shells standing on their own just next to it.

Mikita chuckled, "When I was in the army, I was called a shotgun surgeon." He fiddled with a few malaria pills, placing them into one of the orange cylinders and tossing it to the scientist. He had caught the pills as well as the illness, as did several others of his impromptu patients in that last ten minutes; however the pills would've held them over until he could use the shots in the morning when they had been more active.

"If you start hurling or start feeling hazy at night, take one."

"Thanks." The scientist once again turned his gaze toward the shotgun after he had regarded his pills. Mikita had known the look he was giving the gun, soon to turn towards him. However he had been expecting a few Rattata with a few cuts and chipped teeth any moment according to one of the grunts that had seeked his aid so he spoke in proactiveness.

"Being a combat medic was alright," He felt his tags wrapped loosely around his neck jingle as he checked the antiseptics in their cabinets. "I've been all over the world and it's never how they ever say it will be in the advertisements."

"This is my first time out of Japan and the Central Regions actually," He spoke as he downed one of the tablets he had just given him,

"That's why you got malaria." Zubats for some reason had taken the parasitic disease that the now extinct mosquitos had, how a Zubat had been able to clamp down on James' leg was something else, but there were other things to think about.

"As good a hypothesis as ever…..But the question is how an officer like you ends up taking orders from that new guy."

"Well, Archer's Boss is my Boss, and I've got him dishing out cash if this thing goes well."

"I guess so, but that didn't answer my question entirely, Lieutenant Noelle."

A single Growlithe had wandered in, its hind leg stiff, bare of fur, and bruised. It whimpered Mikita's latex hand passed over the bruising, however the quick spray of iodine, a needled jab with antivenin and a tight gauze wrap around the affected area had proven to lighten the mood of the canine, it promptly licking its benefactor's face before prancing out.

"You're quick."

"The pirates that still occupy the Philippines used Muk and Tentacool extensively," He wagged the purple antidote spray bottle before it was brushed aside, "Nothing more than probably one of your patrolling Zubats tagging the poor thing.

"About that…"

"I'm here because I have nothing else to do."

"A hobby then? How'd you become a Mercenary?" James had asked. His last name was familiar to Mikita, for it was the name that his favorite professor had in the academy: Oak. He didn't mention it though, he'd probably see this man again someday down the road at some reunion.

"I'm not; I just need someone to pay my bills." Mikita sheepishly responded, hand raking through what hair he had.

"Half a million is a lot for bills."

"Well, I was promised much more when I was in the Army."

"Why aren't you there anymore then?"

"Dishonorably discharged."

"Really? You seem to be a nice enough guy." Mikita was compelled to agree with that observation.

One of the Rocket grunts had pushed past the tent flap, one of the Raticate having bit down on his leg. Mikita hadn't known how good battlefield medicine and practice would've served him with who was basically a civilian, though when he had brandished a Vodka bottle and placed it next to his patient on one of the free tables it was warning enough it was probably going to hurt.

He had been chugging quickly when the first spray of alcohol was layered onto his shin and the red gashes on that. The bottle flew and he yelped all of his pain at once, thankfully Mikita either had the foresight or the prior experience to not have already put the needle and string in him. The Rocketeer had handled the stitching well after the first few weaves, the gauze over the injury finishing off the quick operation, promptly limping out.

"None of you scientist are trained in medical procedures?"

"Mostly archeology, geology, and occasionally technology around Rocket… The medical professionals have been sidetracked to some other project." The professor paused, observing the lieutenant in his medical treating element. "Did the UNG train you well?"

"My patients should be the ones who can say." Of course he was trained well. Fourth in his class in the Vermillion Academy, which he joined at the ripe age of fourteen after his initial stint as a trainer. Four years of training, six years of active service.

'And yet no promotion….'

"Define patient, lieutenant."

"I'm a shotgun surgeon James. It's whoever I operate on," The lieutenant had made a joke, a poor military one at that; however it took the educated scientist before him a long moment to realize it, only making him uneasy.

"Is your humor what got you pulled out?"

"Nah, Giovanni says it was my…" Officially it was murder or "genocide" as the Pokémon Rangers in Fiorre had yelled in his direction as they man handled him in some god forsaken corner of the sewer system below their region, "Devotion to the founding principles of the United Nations Government Army."

"So you got a discharge instead of a medal?"

Mikita had given the blue haired man the short stare. His mask was still on, the green army cap covering his messy black hair; however his silver eyes had given him enough answers through their solemn look. He had been betrayed and cast aside for doing what he thought was right, however it wasn't in his business to ponder about what could've happened and he went back and busied himself with his medicines.

"I see…." James rose and made for the tent flap, his eyes and mind far beyond exhausted to pursue the topic any further. Mikita hadn't at all minded the conversation though, hearing himself speak somewhat casually again. "We'll be here for another two weeks, it would be suspicious if your van is seen leaving the region just before we start packing up as well."

A short nod in his direction gave Mikita's acknowledgement.

"We'll have the package ready in the morning." He had nearly stepped out of the tent; however Mikita had his own question for the scientist.

"What's so important about Dreamstone James?"

The scientist glanced outside the tent quickly before turning back to the lieutenant. His tongue pushed around in his mouth, being conflicted to tell him too much.

"It changes everything."

"How?"

"It's going to be the **future**."


	7. Chapter 3

He figured the last time he'd hear the rattle of machine gun fire it was when he opened fire on that nest less than a month ago, and he'd assumed that this particular dream was merely a blurry flashback to some firefight in his past, however the ringing in his ears turned out to be nothing but real.

Mikita fumbled out of his bed and onto the dirt floor, the shock immediately whisking him awake, the firefight in his "dreams" having manifested in reality.

Only the sound indicated that he was in a bad position without anything worth a damn to protect himself, however he had taken to rest in his clothes, the PokéNav still wrapped around his wrist. It read he had only gotten four hours of shut eye; however it hadn't mattered with the blood now pumping through his veins again. He was alive, but if the screeches of the Zubats coupled with gunfire were any indication, that fact wasn't to stay true.

The medical bed in the tent had proven comfortable enough to sleep in, so the bone saw was quickly in his hand before the flood of night light was ushered through from the opening entrance flap.

A muzzle of a gun poked out followed by the head of a person. It took the well-seasoned soldier less than a second to identify that this man wasn't one of the uniform clad Rocketeers, the tribal tattoos decorating his bald head clear enough in the moon light.

Mikita rushed forward before the man cleared the flap, the feet between them closed in a second before his arm reached out and pulled the man by his neck in on his terms.

He had taken the intruder by surprise, his gun knocked away by his impact to the ground. Mikita had pinned him to the ground, the bone saw immediately jabbed into the intruder's right arm. He gurgled a scream; however it was merely another whisper to the chaos happening outside.

It was a raid and Mikita had known the scenario well. Whoever they were, they must've over powered the UNGA checkpoint and attacked by moonlight. The man's screams went on, the soundtrack of the night as he heard more than Rocket's sentry Zubats outside dying. He had collected his thoughts as he had composed himself. He was probably the only man left to fight against whoever they were. The rattle outside spoke to the testament he was outgunned and outmatched.

He remembered why he was here in the first place, though the attainment of the sum of cash began to pale in importance as his body adjusted to being under fire. His heart rate quickened, muscles tensed, and mind racing. He tried to remember the layout of the camp, possible infiltration points, the status of his own body, courses of action among other things.

'One thing at a time' Mikita whipped his bone saw out the flesh of his victim, his musing about the situation refocusing.

"Who are you?!" He had matched the volume of the man's screams, being detected not a problem.

He seemed to refuse as he recomposed himself, wriggling his shirtless body under his grip in an attempt to escape, cursing and spitting in his native tongue.

"I can make this more painful than it should be you know!" Mikita kneeled, his boot momentarily pinching on the cut marking the man's arm as if a discarded cigarette, his other foot on his chest and his position bent, bone saw ready for another jab.

He was a Medic; he knew how to pull anyone's strings anatomically. The shoulder area was a particular target he always aimed for, if not for disarming his enemy, it was to harm them greatly for a bundle of nerves had been located there.

The intruder once again screamed. The cut juiced like a lemon, blood coating Mikita's boot. He wriggled and squirmed to no avail, the pain counteracting his strength and will. Mikita had promised himself he wouldn't kill anyone outside of the service, though he hadn't been kidding himself. He had brought a shotgun with him and perhaps the reason why the plane ride was so hard on his gut was because of its compression against the Kevlar vest he wore underneath the scrubs. He hadn't wanted to, but he was prepared to, and far too used to, killing.

His screaming subsided; eyes wincing in pain and all at once his resistance subsided under the former lieutenant's heel.

The winner of the fight had kneeled down further, the intruder's pulse still going.

A hot exhale came from Mikita contrasting the cold ones of his opponent, unconscious against the dirt floor.

In the dark, Mikita had yielded more information from him than he would have if he had been awake. The tattoos on his head extended down all over his body, war paint as opposed to ink. The designs were elaborate, even to Mikita's dulled sense of artistic knowledge, holding the answer to his question.

Even at a glance he knew they were the tribal men, of what clan (if any) was negligible, but they were the Native Americans driven to madness when the bombs fell centuries ago. When this area was resettled by pioneers over three hundred years ago they faced these natives in the same ways they did a thousand years ago, though Columbus never had to face Pokémon and automatic weapons. It was a hard and overly complicated advance by these people who colonized this region and Old America as a whole, but Guyana had been mostly "tamed".

"UNGA protection my ass." The lieutenant hadn't believed the checkpoint had failed, picking up his opponent's fallen weapon.

Rifles and shotguns had paled in effectiveness when compared to Pokémon, the pioneers having lost too many to the synergy that these natives possessed with the wildlife, even backed by the first new companies of the United Nations Government's Army, however he was better off with a Kalashnikov and his shotgun than he was with a bone saw.

The shotgun was quickly slung over his back and a beat up old Kalashnikov was idle in his arms. For a brief second, in his scrubs, jeans, and the bare minimal protection of Kevlar on his chest, he reminded himself of how much he looked like one of those pirates...

He racked the metal bolt back, the weapon dirty and grimy as yet another visitor came through the tent flap, chaos still erupting outside. Orange flames painted the air as he became aware of his next patient.

It muttered its name a few times, regarding its fallen master and then the man with the AK above him. It took more than a second for the Typhlosion to know what happened, and not much more than a second after that for the flames on its back to ignite.

Mikita had the luck of the draw however and it only took one moment to raise his rifle to meet the overgrown beast.

The fire on its back met the fabric of the tent, the sage green turned black and then burning into nothing. The medical tent caught fire, and then Mikita then promptly opened fire as the Typhlosion lunged, claws swooping in. At such a range, none of them could've missed, but the Kalashnikov had the reach. The Typhlosion's momentum reversed itself, stumbling backward out of tent, training moving Mikita's legs to follow him out. Each recoiling shot felt like a well-worn glove to him, the force of the recoil fitting nicely into his shoulder as he kept the spread to a minimum. Each shot had taken center place on the yellow fur of the beast, its chest turning into red splotches with each twitch it made from the shots making impact. Lungs and ribs broke as the bullets exited out from the other end. Mikita was intent on mag dumping the thirty 7.62 rounds in perpetual overkill, spraying fire that lit up his portio of the night.

His rifle sealed the Typhlosion's fate by the rain of lead that came from it, and by extension, Mikita. However he had almost sealed his own had he not caught a glimpse of his surroundings in his peripheral vision. The camp had looked nothing like the one he had drove into hours before, the clarity of the moon light was enough to reveal Natives left and right sacking the camp. Rocketeers were fighting a hopeless battle, scattered Zubats, Grunts, and Scientists, fighting to no avail. He also saw the machete coming at him from his right.

The Typhlosion let out a horrible cry and a last spurt of flame in its killer's general direction, but it had missed and definitively set the medical tent ablaze. Mikita's rifle clicked empty, in the split second he transferred from targeting the Typhlosion to the native running at him with the machete, his hands went from trigger grip to around the stock.

The machete came down and the empty rifle came up to meet it, the weight of the rifle overpowering the machete away from him as reciever and blade collided. In that moment of surprise Mikita followed his rifle through the swing, one hand letting go of the rifle and rolling into a fist. He punched at the same angle as his swing, forcing the man to the ground, yelling gibberish in the hopes his compatriots would help him. The pistol in the man's holster was quickly picked, and Mikita had broken out running toward his van.

Perhaps it was the lighting conditions or the cover of chaos, but no one had noticed the man in the scrubs and the jeans dashing across to his van, the back thrown open amid gunfire and the cries of various Pokémon.

He grasped for his coach gun and then his pack that he had stored next to the stretchers, the gun snapped closed with shells as the sound of growling came forth. A Mightyena had tracked him into the van, the wolf's primal instincts probably serving it better than its master's. It nearly caught his heel as he jumped into the rear of the van, though he landed on his back and he had put his gun forward to meet the threat. The double barrels had aimed through his legs as the Mightyena had pounced once again, though the jaws that posed the threat were soon removed as one shell had exploded in its face with instantaneous death, the shockwave in th confined space making his arms tremble.

The body twitched post-mortem and was promptly kicked out of the van, the blood stains from his three kills in the last couple of minutes still there coating his boots, scrubs, and arms as if he were some bastard abstract art piece. He had been used to knowing the situation, the parameters of the battle. Though he was on his own for the time being, rudely awoken in the middle of the night to come into an ambush. However he was a medic and he worked with what ws given to him, this not being an exceptional situation.

There was not much in the sports bag in the first place, shotgun removed, so he had thrown in the remaining painkillers, antibiotics, and bandages into it for either surviving Rocketeers and if worse came to worse, himself. For a second, he thought it'd be too much either way, but it didn't matter, the supplies weren't his to begin with and he couldn't care less for preservation or cost effectiveness.

Objectives were always at the forefront of Mikita's mind, hammered into his brain by years of them. He wasn't enlisted anymore, but he still had an objective as the ringing on his forearm was reminding him.

The van's tires were discovered to have been slashed as he jumped out and took cover behind the concrete road blocks, the PokéNav on his right arm answered as he ducked his head down, back to the wire wall of the encampment.

"It's a bad time, Archer." He hadn't needed to even glance down at the ID to know it was him, speaking in a hushed voice, calm and collected despite the situation.

Archer's tone was the contrary, he had yelled, perhaps spit into his own line. "The hell is going on over there, lieutenant!?"

He peeked over the concrete barricade, the medical tent had since been burned down, the fire feasting on its remains as the Natives continued inward into the camp, destroying pockets of resistance as far as Mikita could tell.

"Hush, Archer. Don't get me killed now you hear?" He swapped cover down a few feet, intent to getting to the dig site and avoiding the eyes of the intruders.

"Don't you shush me lieutenant, I have probably the most important asset down there in Guyana and the sat footage is picking up fires and corpses!" A body had lied against the erect tent Mikita had taken cover behind, the black uniform and the parka having been torn by a well-placed slash of claws across the man's chest. The Rocketeer had died in this position, his eyes reflecting the moon like pools of water, hands clutched at a red and white sphere.

The Pokéball was inert, whatever Pokémon it had once contained was released, however the distinctive ping that came by touching the material was still there.

A group of armed men had almost come across the lone ex-soldier, a husky Scyther in tow, sniffing the air for any survivors, but the inert Pokéball was thrown in the opposite direction and promptly drew their attention, running off into some corner of the camp. An appeased smile had come across Mikita's face; however it disappeared with another shout from his handler.

"What the hell is happening over there Mickey?!" He dashed from cover to cover, the dirt tracks he made mingling with those of paw prints and bare feet.

"Natives came and attacked in the middle of the night, I just woke up no more than a few minutes ago." He wondered where was the UNGA, or what happened to them, but they would be useless and in the end counter-productive to what he was originally doing.

"Did the UNGA checkpoint fail?"

"Don't know. You have any idea who these guys are?"

Papers ruffled and people bustled behind that comm line, more than apparent that Archer had been in the same situation room he had seen him in earlier.

"This is probably the exact group that made a bother of itself before the UNGA moved in. Descendants of some Native American tribe." He ducked out of cover to look at one body that wasn't clad in black.

'At least someone had tried to fight back.' He mused over the body, the bite marks on its neck and the nearby corpse of the purple rat meant leaving no doubts over what happened. The war paint on the body was generally the same as the man he had taken out in the medical tent, the war paint still wet in some places. The feather head dress and the leather whip over a pair of ill-fitting pants denoted that had been in some way shape or form some sort of Pokémon handler to the natives, his skin baked a tan typical to those who lived on the equator.

"No shit, Archer."

"To be precise, their official name of the only noticeable group is roughly translated: "Father of God"."

"Sounds like religious terrorism, Archer."

"Something regarding that, you should know the sort."

"Don't remind me." It was a sour remark; however the blood on his face provided an even more unwanted taste in his mouth. The Mightyena had taken a twelve gauge to the head, and the momentum had unfortunately pushed the grey matter forward, the red on his bare skin not differentiating him from the attackers' war paint.

The plucked pistol was firm in his right hand, the left gripping his coach gun. He had no idea how he remained stealthy, but if all indications were correct, and he knew his spatial awareness hadn't become that impaired; he was behind all of the "God Fathers" and their Pokémon.

Yelling in their foreign language, they had all but indicated that they thought they had wiped out all immediate resistance, circling around the main tent in the center area.

That also meant that the Dreamstone was about to be put in harm's way.

"What am I dealing with Archer? I need to know or I am not getting Dreamstone back,"

"You're dealing with an extremist tribe who thinks all Pokémon come from one of their children."

Mikita had heard his fair share of reasons why terrorist or pirates went to war: Oil, money, god, culture, land grabs, but never of the like he had just heard.

He had realized he had been panting, adrenaline having kicked in and leaving him at that moment. His bodily functions proved to not benefit him at all given the sound of growling rounding the corner behind him.

It was a deep and heavy gnarl, the air having warmed up.

'Houndour…" He whispered, advising himself. The pistol was clicked off its safety, stuffed into the front of his pants as his shotgun was pointed in the direction of the incoming threat. Houndour and Houndoom were a favorite of pretty much everyone who used Pokémon as weapons. Easy to train, very familiar because of their canine roots, their fiery temper was used to much effectiveness on the battlefield. The more experienced among the packs were able to bark fireballs, but that took time and training which the UNGA in particular didn't care for.

"Stay on the line Archer; I might go loud any second."

Its teeth were the first thing he noticed, bared and covered with its saliva. Threatening as it appeared, he had dealt with the canine in the same manner he did the Mightyena.

The shot was loud. Its effects perhaps even louder, the point blank shot having thrown the body much farther down than he had expected with chunks of flesh spread around. However dealing with one threat led to another and the sound of foreign shouting erupted through the camp once again.

The tent he had taken cover behind was instantly dancing from its rope foundations as a ripple of assault rifle fire cut through and diced up the sage tent.

Mikita slid under the gunfire, hiding behind another concrete barrier and blindly firing with his coach gun. Whoever they had been, they were not accurate shooters. That hadn't meant that them closing the gap was preferred.

He popped his head out and aligned his shotgun with his sight.

One man had fallen as he pulled the trigger of his shotgun, however one was replaced by many and he found himself in a firefight not even a full twenty four hours in a foreign country.

'Still doesn't beat Australia.' Jokes and fond memories aside he emptied the remaining shell of his weapon into a charging tribal, his body flailing as he fell to the dirt ground with an unhealthy thud.

His shotgun had clicked empty, an audio cue for Mikita to let the shotgun fall as his hands went from one grip to another, yanking the pistol out of his pants and re-aiming.

* * *

Archer had a satellite feed trained on his mercenary. For all the chaos of the current situation, he had to be impressed by the lowres imagery. Five men had initially responded to his loud disposal of the Houndour, having dealt with one seconds later under fire. His transition from long gun to pistol was smooth and accurate; a testament to his experience.

Each shot from the pistol fired had hit home and then five men had been dead within the minute, the muzzle flash from the pistol illuminating the shot briefly.

He wasn't to blame, Lieutenant Noelle that is, he hadn't any foresight to know that this was going to happen. Nor was he a leak judging by the way he dropped the raiders, but still Archer's anger could only be vented at him for the moment.

The rest of the room had been in chaos, bustling and trying to get a grip on the scenario in Guyana. He had been calm and collected however, instead his mind concentrated on what had led up to this.

Perhaps that had been irrelevant based on the current situation.

His priority now was damage control, raising his cellphone to his mouth.

"Mikita?"

* * *

He dropped a pistol magazine and replaced it with a fresh one as he spoke to his PokéNav, running for a weapon from his fallen foes after racking back the plastic slide.

"Yes, sir?" He answered the call, eyes scanning over the rifles on the ground.

"Do what you can to clear the camp; we're organizing several rescue flights from the nearest airbase to the port."

If the camp was filled with tribals who hadn't known how to use their rifles he stood a fair chance, picking up a stray Kalashnikov from the ground. Just now the Zubats started to recollect themselves far high in the sky and they were organized for a supersonic barrage. Thankful for the medical support he had given the Zubat earlier he had hoped that they would be able to differentiate friend from foe in the chaos.

"Roger that Archer. I'll secure Dreamstone as best I can."

"Good man. Archer out."

He had scavenged several mags from the other guns that fell, however one felled weapon had struck him odd in particular.

It was an AR-15 pattern rifle, not something found typically in the hands of forest guerillas in the rainforest.

Weapons in the world were all either found in weapon caches from before the Third World War or were reproductions from government controlled firms. Those pirates and bandits that Mikita had shot at and been shot at from had been thankful for the Cold War that had happened before the hot one however, millions upon millions of firearms hidden away and dug up as time went on. His gear was mostly made up of those relics from the 1960's, at least his guns were, so he knew the look of them well compared to the new ones that had been designed in the last century.

The Kalashnikov in his hand and the AR-15 on the ground were fine designs, but they had come and been used by distinctly different people: The AK was the weapon many people still attributed to evil, the AR-15 the one held by their saviors.

Perhaps the detail would've been ignored if it had been used and chewed up, but it hadn't been. It was new and the white paint that outlined the letters of the trademark and switches were still shining.

This was not something that they had just come upon, Mikita knew, rifles were never left behind by their carrier in the UNGA whom used these rifles exclusively. These rifles had to have been given.

No matter how those weapons had managed to be ascertained a stray shot from one of them had just then suddenly tugged at his Kevlar vest and he was suddenly spun down in the ground in response. It was a glancing blow and the Kevlar underneath his shot scrubs deflecting the shot well. However he still had felt the blow as he was thrown off balance and sent down to the ground. The shot rattled his guts, bruising his skin unpleasantly, but it was a survivable shot.

He moved into the fall however and spun onto his back toward the origin of the shot, Kalashnikov aimed in his scrunched position.

"God damn!"

A tribal had shot him from the cover he had just come from, forced below the concrete wall as a 7.62 burst from Mikita chipped away at it.

The Zubat swarm in that moment dissipated and came back down in a stream upon the camp, a handful coming toward Mikita's target and unleashing their ear splitting attacks on the Tribal. Taken off guard he stood up and started shooting wildly in the air at Rocket's bat sentries. Taking the initiative Mikita righted himself and sent rounds into his chest, disposing of the tribal in short order. Dashing for the body, his foot kicked his M-16 away as he verified if he had been dead.

'Punctured lung. Multiple organs pierced.' His mind went over the damage unarbitrarily, rifle pointed at the already dead man's head just in case. The war paint had been all the same on the tribals. If it had been some special occasion raiding this camp, the war paint told so in its patterns.

The bats circled around him, the concern of him being pointed out by the swarm disturbing him. It didn't take long however to realize that the bats were merely waiting for commands from a trainer. Something he had once been long ago.

Pointing off toward the center of the camp he ushered orders like he had as an officer:

"Sweep the camp. Draw them out! Poison them!" The purple bats complied with a magnificent screech and all hell broke loose as Mikita followed them through the camp.

One by one the tribals and their Pokémon had been taken by surprise by the counter-attack. Ushered out in plain sight it had been a shooting gallery for the seasoned soldier.

The medical tent was in the southern corner of the camp, however he hadn't worried about missing targets, the amount of noise he and his bats had been making would draw the attention to him and hopefully away from the center tent. The tribals hadn't been career soldiers like he had been, at least none like he had faced before so he had the upper hand when he had been backed up by Pokémon. He was shot at by those tribals who had been coherent enough to see Mikita however his aim was more refined and for every shot that had impacted the ground in the vague area around him it had cost them five men and a Pokémon in return.

From cover to cover, he covered the camp in a diagonal pattern. It was a typical sweep-up, nothing too out of the ordinary, especially since none of the tribals could've shoot worth a damn. The Zubat had been dealing with the tribals just fine, shooting off poison stingers and occasionally swooping down and biting into the faces and necks of the tribals, Mikita's AK dealing with those who had been missed. The supersonic attacks the Zubat used had caused great noise, scrambling the brains of those afflicted by it and distorting both mind and vision. The tribals had all fallen out of the tents they had been looting, searching for something quite obviously, but ushered out from the cover as their hands were clasped around their ears they ended up shooting wildly into the air, each other, or themselves.

He had nearly unloaded a magazine into the black clad man that had been running at him from his side, however instead of the unloading him with bullets he had thrown the rifle in the figures direction. The Rocket Grunt grabbed the rifle and came to Mikita's side as he switched to the .45 that had been tucked in his pants.

"What's the situation Grunt?!" Mikita yelled in between his death dealing shots at the confused and dazed tribals and their variety of Pokémon, a hand forcing the Rocket grunt to walk in step with him creating a firing line.

The Rocketeer had been unwieldy with the rifle, his experience showing even at the corner of Mikita's eye, but he had tried firing it at a stray Houndoom that had been chasing its own tail in confusion and a glancing blow had sent it whimpering away.

"There are several of us who have been able to hold out!" The Rocket Grunt's rifle clicked empty, however that was solved by Mikita taking a mag from one of his pockets and locking a new magazine in place as the Rocket Grunt still held it.

"Yank the handle!" He ordered the grunt, which he did, chambering another steel round. "And what're you doing then?!"

"I was trying to get you lieutenant! You're the only one we know on base that can help us to reinforce the center tent! The center tent is locked up due to careful construction but if they start burning that shit down we'll lose everything!" The fiber of the main tent had been some special material akin to the dragon skin, the foundations planted were many and buried into the ground. It was a good defense, but it wouldn't last.

"You saying they really are trying to get at Dreamstone?!" It was the only reason.

"Yes, sir! I've told everyone I can to converge on the center camp!"

"Good call, keep the rifle and keep going! I'll organize a counter-attack."

"Yes, sir!" The grunt disappeared when they passed the next aisle of tents, leaving Mikita and his swooping Zubats to deal with the incoming onslaught of tribals. It had been a stroke of luck that one Mightyena wasn't able to be fazed by the a sonic attacks, taking the lieutenant by the surprise as it pounced onto his back, however that problem was dealt with by Mikita purposely falling onto his back, crushing the wolf under his weight.

He had never been one to take count of his kills as he once again righted himself off the crushed bones of the Mightyena that had just tried to gnaw at his neck from behind, though tonight had proven to be an extra-ordinary one in all circumstances.

"Twenty something natives..." He racked the slide back of the .45 he had picked up to check his ammo count, "Five Pokémon." He gazed up into the night sky strewn with bats as he had taken a knee and checked himself for any injuries. "Seven something possible."

Perhaps he could have a bonus per head counted. However he caught himself in that muse not wanting to become the common mercenary scum. 'I'm better than that.' He told himself in his weary mind.

The Mightyena had dug deep into his torso and lower back with its claws, sharp claws piercing skin and bleeding where the Kevlar vest hadn't covered up. It was an excuse enough to down a container of painkillers from his bag. He wasn't intent on getting himself addicted, but the cool relief that rushed into his veins was much needed as he continued the deadly stride toward the center of the camp.

The shotgun was whipped up and closed with a fresh batch of shells from a plastic bag in his pockets as one by one the tribals had tumbled out of the camp's tents in the middle of their looting and pillaging, hands off their weapons and on their head. It was a useless remedy, covering their ears, so Mikita had prescribed each and every one of the sufferers with a cure from his "medicine stick", booming out relief as only the more aware ones caught a glimpse of the lieutenant before they took pellets upon pellets from his gun.

No matter how or why they infiltrated this camp, no matter how much or little planning they had performed beforehand, they never anticipated an ex-soldier to be in the Rocket camp regardless of what they had intended.

* * *

Gun fire erupted through the camp at each end and Mikita knew that the Zubats were their saving grace, their ability of flight and their use of supersonic attacks tipping the raid in their favor. The Rocketeers that he had regrouped in his corner of the camp were inexperienced, frightened, and perhaps even driven mad judging by the blank stares of those who survived.

"You'll get over it." Mikita had said sternly to the huddled Rocketeers taking cover behind a tent before the center of the camp. The fighting had been raging on for over an hour now, the Rocketeers having scavenged weapons and offered some resistance. Only now enough had been killed for them to fall back to the center tent and begin working away at the main tent. The shadows of the scientist that hid inside the tent were seen, cowering, trying to talk the tribals out of it to no avail.

A few Zubat had fallen from the sky and their corpses had sprinkled the dirt ground. However death was more apparent in the minds of the Rocketeers. Many of them, guns held shakily in their hands had taken their first life today and lost friends undoubtedly. They were shivering with the what-ifs in their minds, nerves only cooled by the medicine in Mikita's bag.

"Have you, lieutenant?" A young man had said from the group, voice sad and shaking.

He took a short glance over his group of broken men, their outfits blending in with the darkness only fended off by starlight and the flames from their tents; their pale faces the same twisted expression.

'Had I been like this?' Had he broken down after his first firefight? His first kill? His psyche hadn't remembered or perhaps he had forced himself to forget, but either way the answer to the question the Rocket Grunt had asked was yes. He had very much gotten over and gotten used to death.

The center building of the camp was a fairly well built tent. The rigid construction and fibers keeping out the raiders and their attacks against the new-age fabric had bought whoever had taken shelter inside them time. Just as he imagined those tribals had known exactly what they had been going for and where it had been. Because of that fact they hadn't blown the tent to bits or lit it on fire with the Typhlosion and Houndour they had, but the sound of a chainsaw coming to life signaled that they hadn't much time left.

The Zubats had been fended off and scattered, as much as that had led the Rocketeers to a disadvantage it had gotten quieter and the lieutenant had been able to gather his thoughts.

Archer had contacted him minutes before, something about how a flight will probably deployed from New Mexico City up North; however the UNGA brass had been difficult and terms were not sealed yet.

With that good news came bad: That meant the schedule he had now had to be advanced tenfold to not be intercepted by the UNGA that had been inbound, their arrival due in the early Afternoon. Mikita expected an explanation after this, perhaps even a bonus, but right now he had reverted back to an officer that he had been and looked over to his 'men'.

Mikita singled out a pair, "You two, flank them far right and draw their attention. Stay under cover but stand your ground. We'll clean them up from behind and any other of Rocket remnants will take that as their cue to move in."

They hadn't asked questions and darted right with their captured rifles. Among the survivors he had picked up a Magneton from the engineers, it hovering with a tiny metallic buzz.

He had once tried to kill one of these during a patrol. Needless to say shooting a metal object with electromagnetic properties hadn't turned out as he intended and he ended up being shot by his own bullets.

A hand went over the dent in his skin where one of those bullets had passed through and he also remembered how effective how it was on the battlefield. Mikita had gazed over to it and the Magneton immediately snapped to attention, waiting for orders.

As a trainer who lived far too close to the Safari Zone when he was younger he also remembered the amount of Pokémon dialects he had picked up because of that. Ranging from Khangaskhan to Piplups, he had been able to understand, interpret, and communicate. All Pokémon usually had understood the language of their region, English having survived as the dominant language throughout time, however it could not have been said for vice versa for most of mankind. Except of course, the trainers, something he once was.

Unfortunately Magneton didn't use typical speech methods as far as Pokémon went. It had used scratches of its screws and the snaps of electricity to talk, which Mikita couldn't interpret coherently.

"Magneton?" He asked of the Pokémon that wasn't his own, it responding with a slight nod of its three eyes.

"I need you to move ahead of us, I know you probably don't have experience of doing this but I need you to grab the bullets they fire at us in mid-air and at least stop them," It was slightly taken aback by what Mikita had just said, using itself as a shield seemed a cruel at first, though a few seconds later its eyes calmed and saw his reasoning. "If you can, try to harness their momentum and send them back at them, got it?" Most of the Rocket group had stared at the Russian in an unbelieving look about what he had proposed, but they hadn't disagreed with the protection of the Magneton.

With a determined buzz and shine in its eyes the Magneton believed the lieutenant and he returned the sentiment with a fire in his silver eyes as well, smirking under his medical mask. He acquired a new rifle, a Galil, from the tribals he had downed. More effective than a Kalashnikov, but also something he had been issued during his deployments in what was Africa or the regions of Sumeria in the Mid-East. It was a detail stuck in the back of his head ever since he came across that pristine AR-15, but he was in the heat of combat, and so those details had to stay there.

The first shots from the two Rocketeers were heard and all at once everyone had tensed up as the sound of the chainsaw stopping and the tribals moving toward the fire signaled their move.

With one aggressive yank of his bolt, Mikita pushed forward with his Rocketeers.

They rounded the tent, Magneton at point and they opened fire at the distracted tribals and their Pokémon.

"Concentrate fire on the Pokémon!" Bullets the Magneton could stop Pokémon attacks it could not. An alert Quilava had spit flames at the Magneton, the flames on its back flared and alerted the rest of its group, the glancing blow missing the Magneton and instead taking out a Rocketeer in a heated boom.

He had forgotten to actually tell the Rocketeers how to shoot and so they stood and took the brunt of their rifle's recoil. Their shots hadn't been any better than the tribals in that firefight, though their number had beaten them back. All of the Rocketeers knew to minimize collateral damage, their rate of firing going down as the tent was in the foreground of their targets.

In that moment the chainsaw the tribals had brought was raised under fire and brought through the tent's material in one messy go.

"Go!" And then the Rocketeers had all stepped up their game at once with the war cry and piled out to surround the center tent. Normally they'd all been dead, but the Magneton hadn't disappointed and every bullet that had been fired in their direction was sent back. Waves of redirected bullets fell upon the enemy and they had fallen in turn in a bloody mess, as was the negatives of going shirtless or bare into battle unlike Mikita had been. He had taken a bullet or two in the firefights that night, but the Kevlar on his chest stopped the worst of injuries. Unfortunately that fact was true throughout the Rocketeers that night and many had fallen despite his quick medical aid to some.

Mikita had stepped up his rate of fire and in one sweep with the combined fire of the Rocketeers they finished off the remaining Pokémon and tribals outside the tent in a bloody spray, muzzle fire illuminating the night like fireworks.

If not for the group of tribals emerging from the tent with James in a choke hold and at gun point the tribals would've all been dead between the combined fire of the reorganized remnants of Rocket and their Pokémon. Mikita's own sights had been trained on the head of the tribal holding James hostage, but his hand was trembling, an attempt to blow a hole in the man's brain useless.

_"Sookin syn."_ He swore in Russian, disappointed with his aim in the situation. "Hold fire!" Mikita shouted to his remaining allies, left arm up and fist balled signaling the ceasefire.

They had the Professor as a hostage as they arrogantly walked out of the front of the tent, another tribal holding a steel box and the rest pointing their weapons at the Rocketeers.

'A Mexican Standoff' that was the term he had come to understand in the Academy about these impasse situations. Every gun that was held by a living man in the camp was raised and fangs were barred by the living Zubats. James struggled to get out of the man's grip, but to no avail.

Mikita had never seen eye to eye to the causes of local rebellions or terrorist or mercenaries, but he had certainly not seen eye to eye with the man who had held James hostage.

He had none.

"What the hell?"

"Watch your mouth you _gringo._" The presumed leader of the tribals hadn't moved his gun but if he had eyes he would've been directly staring at Mikita. However despite the baring disability he had Mikita knew he was somehow looking at Mikita.

"Make any sudden moves and I pop this _capullo._" No-Eyes had spoken with a Hispanic accent, indeed whenever he had heard them command their Pokémon they had been either speaking Portuguese or Spanish. Despite the language barrier his threat was fully understood by every Rocketeer in the crowd. No one had phased, no had said a word, and only the occasional puking of a worried Rocket Grunt had marked the silence.

"What do you want?" Mikita cleared his Russian accent for the moment, making sure his words were understood.

_"Mon ninos." _

"Translations?"

A stray voice from the crowd behind him had answered what he had had indirectly known courtesy of Archer's intel. The tribal holding the metal case had raised the package in his hand for all to see before proudly proclaiming that same words that the leader had said:

_"Mon ninos."_

_ "Mon ninos."_

_ "Mon ninos."_

"My children."


	8. Chapter 4

The two sides locked eyes; though Mikita had wondered how that was even possible with the fact their leader hadn't had them. It hadn't hampered his ability to hold a gun to the head of James, though perhaps his judgment was affected by his lack of senses. The remnants of the tribals were far outnumbered by the Rocketeers, should anyone start shooting at such a short range, Mikita's side would live in the fact they had more bodies, Mikita preemptively putting a few bodies in between the tribal and his own.

What they lacked in numbers they made up for in blind courage.

"Let us go," No-Eyes had cocked the hammer back on his revolver as James struggled in his headlock, "Or else the blue haired bastard gets it."

As expected none of the Rocketeers gave way, each rifle still steady in its aim, the Zubats that survived that long flying above providing over watch.

Mikita's Galil was topped in a quick magazine swap, poised to be emptied upon the twitch of his finger. "We're not letting you go tribal. You should let our man go and we'll let you live. If not," Mikita made a show by ejecting one cartridge from his chamber with a quick yank of the bolt, hoping it bolstered the threat. His ultimatum only yielded laughter from the tribals, though it had really been Mikita who had held back a laugh at the attire of the raiders.

"You should have more respect for gods." It was a command rather than a request, though Mikita was good at not following them.

"From what I understand you see yourselves only as gods over Pokémon."

"In that sense we are greater men than you." No-Eyes' charisma had transmitted across the other tribals, who hurrahed and spoke in their own language confidently. Morale was declining among the Rocketeers, though Mikita wasn't a Rocketeer.

"Greater men who have a numerical disadvantage." Mikita thought he was blind to how outnumbered they were, but if they did know, they truly had been insane.

"Greater men who have a hostage." The revolver was shoved into James' ear, eliciting cries from the man that reverberated through the silence. James' was a nice guy, though he wasn't mission imperative.

"You can take James," The man had fainted upon hearing those words come from the lieutenant's mouth, "As long as you leave the package there." He had no idea if it was even Dreamstone, though it was a good guess, nothing else was of worth in that tent besides the equipment, and even then none needed a bulletproof case for transportation.

"I'm afraid we're merely taking back something that has been stolen from us."

"We dug that fuckin' stone out only a few weeks ago!" Yelled a defiant Rocketeer, in his brashness he pushed forward with an accusing finger.

"Everything belongs to us!" Was the fiery response. The tenacity of that statement would've sparked another firefight, indeed Mikita's finger had been on the trigger as No-Eyes had pointed his .44 away from James' head and into the crowd, though the vision of everyone there had clouded and burned as they were bombarded with a hostile and clogging smell. It was a textbook smoke bomb from a Pokémon. Normally smoke generating attacks were created by electric Pokémon creating small reactions and explosions in the air in the matter of milliseconds; however no electric Pokémon were evident. Then again a Voltorb could've rolled beneath their eyesight and exploded in that instant. Mikita closed his eyes to stop the stinging, hitting the deck as he heard gunfire mere feet away from him. The ground thumped as he felt men fall around him, and by the time he opened his mouth and eyes to breathe and see again, all those bodies were Rocketeers. Some men had the sensibilities to hit the deck, however the smoke bomb had burned their senses. James had been let go, his body limp and still not awake on the dark earth.

Out of the corner of his burning eyes the tribals had broken out running toward the west fence wall, the gap in it evidence enough that that was at least one of their infiltration points.

Mikita stumbled up toward them, dragging men by the collars up.

"Follow them!" He knew the sensation well, concussion grenades were often mishandled and he suffered because of it, so it didn't take long for him to put his rifle in the vague direction the tribals were running. Each shot was heavier on his shoulder than the last and only seconds after he broke out into a run he stumbled onto the dirt ground as Rocketeers around him set up a perimeter around his collapsed form and fired off at the tribals.

Mikita spit up on the ground as he recomposed himself, it was far too early for this kind of shit, that and the contract had just complicated. The guns stopped firing and a hand came to hoist him up to the ground. He angrily tossed his rifle aside and swore in his native tongue.

"Everyone all right?" Several bodies piled in front of the center tent, victim of the ninja-like tactic that the tribals had used to escape. However if they hadn't been shot then they would've survived the rest of the night, all tribals and their Pokémon having left or been killed.

"Reestablish a perimeter. _Astarozhna_!" The Zubat had scattered, the concussion of the smoke bomb throwing off their senses and left them scrambling in the air and into the ground.

With that he was left alone with a few Rocket grunts to help him close up the western perimeter. They all had piled out and not one kill had been made on the tribal group, though that hadn't meant their fire hadn't caught one of them. Concealed by debris, they heard the groans of pain before they saw his body, crawling toward the gash in the gate.

They ran toward the groans and with one motion of Mikita's arms some of his men were directed to secure the gap in their wire wall, the rest following him and guns ready. "Hold your fire, we've got a prisoner." Their shots at the tribals were not all unfounded, a single rifle round having hit and tumbled around in the calf of this particular, unlucky, native. His body was the same as his fellow tribesmen, decked out with fresh war paint and shaven. Nude, toned, and vulnerable. He was crawling toward the fence and sputtering out his pain in his own language. A Rocket grunt had gotten up to the left behind first, a swift kick was delivered to his face.

There was once a set of rules that people in war once followed, he had learned in the academy to break these rules, Geneva was blown off the map during the Third World War and there was no sense fighting with rules in the new world.

He repeated the same torture he performed on the man that had interrupted him in the middle of the night, his now bloody heel pressed onto his bullet wound as the two Rocketeers with him beat the tribal under his heel. The tribal was a strong man however, not fading from consciousness, but that only meant he would feel the pain in its entirety. They stopped after Mikita started spurting out words in Russian, though no one had understood it until he repeated it in English:

"Who the fuck are you?!" Mikita demanded, his shouting cutting out the anger from the other Rocketeers.

"_El Padrino! El Padrino!_"

"Speak English motherfucker!" A Rocket grunt demanded, delivering a hard kick to the tribal as if forcing the answer out. The boot broke a bone as it hit the man's elbow in.

"Godfathers!" He gave an answer in his screams, though sprawled out on the ground he was only crushed more by Mikita's heel on his wound.

"Why did you take Dreamstone?!"

"It was _mi nino_!"

"Where'd you take your child?!" Mikita spoke along the lines of the tribal, though he pushed the man too far, and he fell from the world of the awake.

Mikita spat on the man's bare chest, boot released and angrily double checking the weapons he had on him. "Get this backward bitch out of my sight."

The Rocket grunts respected him not only as a soldier, but as a fighter, after how he had led them today he had the respect only attained by the executives. Instead of corruption and bribery though, he earned it through the show of force he had once provided as a career. Grabbing him by the feet they echoed out a hushed "Yes sir."

"Also alert Archer that I will be heading into the forest, I have a package I need to deliver."

"You can't go out there lieutenant; it's a mad house in that jungle!"

"I know." He hadn't known where he was going, where they had gone, or if he was prepared. But there was adrenaline running through his bones and he was angry that the key to his new life was stolen from him. He rushed past the wire wall before it was closed behind him, the early morning night providing enough light for him to romp out. They had arrived through a cleared path in the dead of night and Mikita followed the trail back, running with his shotgun at his side and clothes still bloody.

The jungle's first impression had served to sober the man, the sights and smells of which different than the camp he had just ran out of. Rainforest as it was, it was damp and his boots were quickly washed after sprinting though puddles and brushing aside branches.

He heard them, their talking, though it disappeared with the sounds of the jungle and his sprint was stopped after he made it to the end of the cleared trail.

Mikita fought in what was Vietnam during his first tour, as hard an environment to fight in as it came. Russians like him didn't favor the tropics, though as his first deployment as a soldier, it set the tone for the rest of his career as a soldier and provided insight to his current situation. He was alone in a foreign jungle, a handful of shells and a spare pistol, looking for tribals who knew this land by the back of their hands who stole a half million dollar prize.

With one coordinated 360 degree sweep he checked his area and the stars in the sky were combined with the eyes of Pokémon looking at him, quickly dashing away on the tree branches away from his gaze. A ruffle of one tree branch had caused the lieutenant to look up, and with knowing eyes a Hoot-Hoot had locked its gaze with the lieutenant's. With one point of its wing Mikita knew what it was doing, and he dashed in that direction. The foliage was thick though blood was about the run thicker if Mikita had caught up with them, though the foliage and branches cut at his skin and he tumbled. He tumbled on an incline downward, and with what little control he had in his descent he saw no escape from landing on the gritty sanded side of a river.

Guyana was called the land of many rivers, but in the overdrive his mind was in he knew they were also transportation routes. He landed running on the side of the river and in a softening roll he faced the rafts of the targets he was chasing after. It was dark and the river seemed darker, though that only helped contrast the targets meters down river from him. Men had crowded on boats and rafts and were skirting up river. The damp ground was no suitable floor to steady him on, though taking his shotgun in his right arm and laying the gun on his left, outstretched arm, it was a stable table for him to send the two precious slugs he had down range.

His training officers had nagged him in the back of his head years after his own graduation, chiding him on how unstable his aim was and how fast his breaths were.

The case carrying Dreamstone was not seen, though it was a safer bet to take an engine out as opposed to individuals. There were more rafts than he could possibly take down though. Stopping some was better than none however.

With one magnificent boom in the purplish light of the day, the serene sounds of the forest were interrupted by a slug being fired from his double barrel shotgun. Birds flew and the water rippled as the slug followed the crafts down the river.

The first shot had missed its mark, an engine of the raft he was aiming at, but he had taken a tribal in the spine, his body tumbling forward and off the raft. This alerted the rest of the tribesmen and fire was returned as Mikita aimed up another shot on his arm. Rounds fell around him and sent mud flying, though one shot came too close and ended up skewing a shot. The shot ended up being more effective that way however, catching one raft by its engine and forcing it to drift towards the sand shore. It was a flat raft, occupied by five or so men, but none had carried Dreamstone and ended up hindering the lieutenant as they provided cover for the rest of the raft flotilla.

They were scared however, being left behind to deal with a man far beyond their league. No concern came upon the leader, No-Eyes. Instead of staying back and retrieving his men, they rowed on, even the Pokémon not even caring as they disappeared down the river.

The raft had hit the shore with a rough landing, tossing its riders onto the ground. That was Mikita's opening and he took it, rushing toward the beached craft switching to his pistol. Had he been in a firefight in that coverless beach he would've been dead, but he ran toward them, abandoning his shotgun and taking the closest man with physical contact. He wasn't a man of CQC, but it didn't take much for a man like him to know how to punch someone. He had caught the only man who wasn't sprawled against the ground as he rose, taking the man's head in head lock in between his body and arm and unloaded two rounds into his neck, the bloody results causing the rest of the natives to panic, sprawling up as best they could. They were too close to each though and as Mikita dropped one body he was already motioning to the next. His trained reaction time kicked in and he was simply chaining kills as close as he could in slowed time.

A swift kick to the next man's skull had probably killed him then and there, the crack of his neck against his boot checking another target off as his arms swiped down a man trying to tackle him and promptly emptied another round into his head. One tribal was successful in sweeping Mikita off his feet, though he rolled on the sand toward the man who had kicked him off his feet and promptly felled him. He landed lying next to him, though unlike Mikita he never got up again as the knife in Mikita's boot was drawn and shoved into his chest, twisting the object amidst the man's scream as he righted himself.

The final man had got up, his rifle aimed, though the slickness that had been on the rifle's fore grip slipped his aim and was knocked away by the lieutenant in one punch. However he backed off and dropped the rifle, Mikita's own pistol clicked back as he pulled the trigger. The pistol was thrown at was deflected by the tribesman, though it was merely a distraction for another blow to his stomach. With no weapons left they had been reduced to fist fighting. A right hook from the desperate tribal only contacted the blocking maneuvers of the lieutenant with minimal effect, the kick to the man's shins sending him off balance as another punch from Mikita impacted his gut. The Mohawk he had been sporting was tugged as he was blown back by the blow, forcing his head out and down into the denim knee of Mikita. The first strike had broken his nose, a red stain left on the pants and on the tribal's face. He cried in his language mercy, though Mikita hadn't understood. Again, and again his face came in contact with his knee. Only when he had a sliver of consciousness left he was thrown to the ground by his skin and pounced upon by Mikita.

The tribal was trapped.

Mikita's arm swung and came in contact with the right side of his face again and again, each time yielding more blood from all openings on his face.

The tribal was stuck in limbo between awake and death, his passing would not be a peaceful one.

"_Zapomnite eto cuvstvo! Remember this feeling! Your clan will know it well!"_

Mikita was no stranger to brutality; in fact it was encouraged in the UNGA as a show of force. However brutality is what got him here in the first place and he ended up just simply executing extreme prejudice on the tribal.

With one last mix of swings as fluid as the strem they were next to, he felt the Godfather's skull disconnect from his spine before his windpipe was crushed by Mikita's grip, body being thrown aside into the shallow of the river.

* * *

The sun rose and then he woke up.

Unfortunately the events of the night prior were real and he found himself right where he left off: Collapsed on a beached raft with a rifle in one hand and a knife in the other.

He had set the bodies to flow on the river after he scavenged from them, ammo and weapons now in his hands and in his pack as the sun rose on Guyana. The short chill would've been replaced with a steady barrage of heat in due time, however he was intent on welcoming the warmth as he sat on the raft.

The construction was crap and given the fact he had shot out its engine, there was no way it was going to be operating again. His weapons were in better shape, still unnervingly immaculate when acquired by the tribals. His shotgun was near useless given the fact shells were not among the ammo he had found and it was stuck muzzle first into the sand as a marker of sorts. He found pistol ammo for his .45 though, upon closer inspection it was a plastic Sig Sauer. In the monetary peace in his waking moments he had finally brought the subject of their weaponry to mind.

He was particularly literate in guns, perhaps a little more than he was Pokémon, though it was more out of necessity to classify ballistic wounds. The Sig Sauer 220 was a very advance hand gun compared to the old 1911s and the Makarovs he was assigned in the military (higher muzzle velocity, ergonomics, and general reliability) though this particular model was in usage by the more well-connected units to his understanding. Special Forces, VIP escorts, highly commended officers; those were the types to usually receive these weapons. That wasn't to say he hadn't known how to use it, the hammer sent up into the inactive and the slide pulled back for a check, but how the natives were able to attain weapons he wasn't able to use in service was a curious scenario. The UNGA had no armories in the area, or any active assets in the area for that matter, but pirates often went international with their stolen goods. It hadn't explained how the cache he had found in the hands of the tribals that attacked him ended up their however, tribals around here hardly had money to play with.

Gun runners were perhaps the culprit, but that ring of crime was hardly his problem at the moment or at any time in his future if he was lucky.

Despite his grievances about the guns, it hadn't meant he didn't know how to use them, in fact the gear was familiar: The .45 pistol, a jury rigged zip gun, and perhaps most surprising of the weapons a designated marksman rifle.

It was a Dragunov; or at least, one of the many variations of the rifle made by his ancestors. It, like the world he lived in, was a remnant of the Third World War. Sitting Indian-style on the raft he sighted it, cycling the already empty magazine manually. What use the sniper rifle was in a jungle was beyond him, though it was not something worth passing up. The magazines for the weapon were small enough that a good number of them was carried by the tribal that the rifle came from, so shoved into his pockets was enough ammo for the moment. Replacing the empty mag with freshly topped one, he racked the bolt back and stood up, admiring the metal parts in the lighting of the morning.

"If only I could bring you back with me….." His admirational muse was interrupted by the ringing on his left arm. With a reluctant look at it he answered the call.

"Lieutenant?"

"_Da?"_

"Normally I would be leaving you for dead but as of now you are the only person within Guyana under our command that isn't leaving the region…..Can you tell me how you ended up a few miles from camp on the edge of a river?" Mikita glanced around his surroundings again; it was a beautiful environment really. Mikita wished he was on vacation really, but this was his work environment unfortunately.

Mikita looked up, imagining he was staring back at the satellite capturing him in its highly magnified lenses. Realizing how quirky he was being he refocused on the device on his arm, rifle hanging idly in his right arm as he begun a slow stride down the river's banks.

"I tried to follow." How he ran several miles was beyond him, though he hadn't argued. A combat high wasn't something to be questioned when it made men just as ferocious as an Alpha Arcanine.

"Well, keep doing that. My grunts told me what you intend and I commend you for your effort. Though at the same time it is a stupid and gambling effort."

"Nice to know you have the upmost trust in my abilities." The blood on his scrubs and jeans were baked in, thankfully flies went extinct and he had avoided that bother.

"I'm not as stoic as my boss Lieutenant Noelle." Mikita chuckled. Giovanni had been stoic, a certain mysterious aura hanging around the CEO.

"Micky." Mikita corrected the executive, though Archer brushed it off.

"…And I should make it clear that I do not like you."

"Is that the worst you've got?" Generally most of the world hated the UNGA. Even the UNG hated the UNGA because they simply were just soldiers, a damned career in the new world. Mikita had basked in the hate however. If he didn't it would've driven him nuts.

"Not for any personal reasons but because I didn't want to use you during this contract. The fact that you are down there insults me, but I'll work with who I've got." Archer realized this much at least, you don't get to be picky choosy.

"I don't care who is leading me, respectfully of course, just get me the right intel and I'll deliver Dreamstone and your precious cat carcass back as soon as possible. I don't lead one man wars but I don't need to if we both do this correctly."

"Duly noted lieutenant."

"Also you get what you pay for, so I hope the contract better be adjusted accordingly."

"Don't push your luck lieutenant."

"I'm not using my luck Archer," The river meandered but it was a peaceful walk despite what had just happened last night, one of the bodies having coming ashore just a short ways down the river. "Did your Rocketeers get anything useful from the bodies at the camp Archer?"

"It was essentially a small army down there," Hardly, perhaps a battalion was a closer word, but he kept shut. "Reviewing of the bodies has confirmed what my previous assumptions were: They are indeed the El Padrinos."

'The Godfathers', Mikita translated the phrase in his head. He had watched a TV series of an Italian band of mobsters once, the title of Godfather very prevalent, however even the brutality of the mafia could've been challenged by these godfathers.

"Your satellites pick anything up?" Rocket and Devon, the two powerhouses of industries, of course were in possession of satellites. Half of all the launches from Mossdeep were funded by either or. None passed over Guyana though, Rocket buying time from a 'communications' satellite.

"We tracked them for a while during your downtime but the foliage is hampering our scans. Follow the river down and we'll see what we can dig up from our military contacts concerning this group."

"Roger." The line was clicked off and his weapon was idly held across his chest in a comfortable stride following down the river. This sort of march brought him back to his old patrols in old countries and regions in the Far East. He couldn't but help move his mouth as if in conversation, but no sound came out as he kept reminding himself he was alone. The river seemed to converse with him but he ignored it, more intent on the direction he was going. He did notice the Pokémon in the forest to his left give the occasional glance, but he hadn't bothered them and vice versa. The cold air turned to warmth and all of the sudden the sun was to his back.

It was truly morning by the time he started using his PokéNav to gauge the distance he was traveling. On the ninth mile he met his first target.

Training dictated that his body would immediately hit the deck, the gritty sand conforming and scratching his exposed skin. Using the optic of his rifle instead of his own eyes he peered at the threat across the river.

"Don't know if I'm racist or not or they all look the same." He gruffed under his breath as he clicked the safety down on the Dragunov, remembering the toleration part of his training. Bald, denim vest, native, and the same black war paint in tribal designs, the man was actively using a whip against its subject. It had been a Croconaw that was receiving the business end of the whip, and it endured the punishment.

Mikita had for a second considered popping the man's head, but it was going to be a messy ordeal. Lowering his crosshairs to center mass his finger lay on the trigger in patience.

He was waiting for orders that never came to eliminate the hostile. With that clicking in his head he squeezed the trigger all the way and one shot went forth as the rifle cycled. Sand flew around him and the firing signature burnt the sand into glass with the gas from the 7.62 round exiting the barrel.

There was no need for compensation at that distance and so the round had hit the man's center mass, lung or heart shot he was going to be dead within the minute. Mikita thought the Croconaw was going to run with the death of its torturer, but to his surprise as he transferred from kneel to prone the Croconaw saw the killer and immediately dived into the river. It was a fast swim and in those few seconds before it crossed the river Mikita realized with horrible surprise that it was about to attack him. His 220 was pulled out from his pants as he backpedaled inward. The Croconaw seemed to catapult itself out of the water and it let its jaws run wide with Mikita's head in its sight.

Mikita rolled sideways on the sand as the Croconaw missed him and aimed his pistol accordingly. The Croconaw line of Pokémon was hardly one to just be put down with one shot of .45 however. One bullet hit home on its arm, but those weren't what did the most damage to its prey.

It hopped again and nearly grabbed Mikita's own arm, though it was short and with one swift kick it was knocked back and disoriented.

Mikita unloaded his magazine promptly into the crocodile. The display was fierce, his audience those watching from the branches, scurrying off after the scene had transpired. The hot magazine was dropped as Mikita kneeled next to the limp body on the sand.

The Croconaw was a young example, the scars on its body long having been present before the whipping he just witnessed or his takedown.

His fingertips just grazed the feet of the Croconaw in an attempt to draw some deeper knowledge from the dead form, but instead he momentarily mourned for something he thought he had saved. "Father's don't treat children this way..."

* * *

Mikita's parents were simple folk enough, both trainers at some point in their prime. At ten years they had allowed him his first Pokémon, a Starly given from a friend's grandmother, and let him travel his native region and abroad in peace. At ten he was legally, and treated as, an adult (though a young one). Years of travel across Hoenn and the Kanto-Johto regions among others, he was in the slightest capacity, bored of being a trainer. Granted a competitive trainer with a contract would've been a great career, the military was more meaningful a pursuit.

'At least it was.' He spited himself. He caught himself spiting himself more than praising himself. There was always room for improvement in his mind, so it was weird when simple thoughts came around. His muse was dulled, he had become a jaded person and he didn't like it all. Though if it was a problem it certainly wasn't going to be solved there in Guyana.

His parents probably caught wind of the discharge, though they were never told where Mikita had ended up. In his guilt he found himself a bad person for not rushing home to his parents and finally being safe in their care, though the enticing nature of the contract overruled a quick visit to Fortree.

"Twenty miles." On flat land with little scuffles, he reiterated the gauge on his PokéNav. Luckily the river hadn't split off into separate streams, a one direction that the Godfathers had went and he had followed. Hunger had never been a problem, in fact he could've gone a week or so without food and his thirst was readily addressed by the fact of his location, his only real problem that would have to be addressed fatigue and supplies. He had walked a day away with little interruption bar that one patrol he had cut down and the sun had slowly eased in front of him in its orange descent from afternoon to night.

It had hardly been the first time he was tracking a "Brown Water Navy", boats belonging to his enemies on an inland river, though it was a situation where he lacked definitive leads. The idea was generally the same however: Follow the river till you see the boats. If the shoddy construction of the one he had forced to beach was anything to go by this particular navy wasn't too far up river if the strength of the river was anything to go by, it slowly coming down to a crawl.

The river got shallower and the trees above him started branching out across the narrowing channel. The sand was quickly disappearing. Intent on following, he had ended up wading into the murky water. Though it only had gone up to his waist it was enough for him to hold his rifle above his head.

Croconaw and particularly Sandiles were often in Guyana's rivers, though worse could've happened and to be frank the likelihood of that happening was low in shallow waters. A ripple here and an unexplained splash there did serve to drive his nerves up, though it wasn't anything he hadn't felt before. This was the area that Rocket had probably lost visual on the rafts, the top cover heavy. It was probably useless anyway; any movement from the rafts and into the dense brush would've otherwise thrown them off as well.

That hadn't meant the pursuit was entirely useless.

The rafts and boats were all piled up underneath an ancient boat house, something that the satellites would've never picked up. He stood as still as water, though the water didn't agree and he found it hard to stay put in it as he observed the area.

His Dragunov was lowered to his eye and he scanned. He wasn't to take a shot with his misbalance, but at least he could observe. "Five Tangos. Two Mightyena." He said to himself. The boathouse was inhabited by that exact population. Indeed they were Godfathers securing the boat house for further use, and that only meant seven more kills under his name. He had not liked it all with a heavy breath. Killing was something unanimously never discussed or talked about in the service, though it happened, you were never asked specifically to kill. It was what Mikita had to do however, and that was his plan of action.

He didn't like doing it, but if he was going to, he was going to do it quick and cleanly. He winced as he remembered his mauling of the last Godfather last night. It was a horrible display that would've disgusted and intrigued him if he had to perform an autopsy, but rage had dictated it and he had not been himself.

The trees were strong enough to set up a perch on, but weak enough for a branch to be broken off and tossed in the direction of the boat house. The skeletal like branch fell on the pier despite the aerodynamics; it was amazing anyone had noticed the sound.

The Godfathers were evidently smart enough to set up patrols and establish security, though not smart enough to fall for the ploy Mikita had just did. Five men had come to the small pier, searching for the source of the sound.

They were all lined up, and in the next few seconds Mikita wanted them to all fall down.

The Mightyena were the first on his priorities despite the easy targets the humans were, its sense of smell denoting that something had been terribly wrong. _Snayperskaya Vintovka, his sniper rifle, _was an automatic. He would have no problem taking follow up shots on the five men, but the dogs were another case. Granted they probably couldn't swim toward the lieutenant but he hadn't wanted them running off to alert anyone else in the area.

"Engaging." It was a whisper quickly blacked out by a string of shots. One Mightyena had stuck its nose in the air and it was promptly blasted off. No one needed a sense of smell to know that they had been under attack in that moment. They stood still in shock as they saw one body of a wolf die before them. It was a phenomenon he had seen many times from afar, men moving their heads but not their bodies in an attempt to identify the threat. Mikita was hidden in the foliage but even as the second wolf was capped they continued their mad scan in their surroundings.

The wolfs were dealt with in less than a few seconds, the tribals lined up on the pier wouldn't take a few seconds more as he realigned his shot. With one shot came one man down, and the recoil as well, but unlike Mikita the branch he was sitting on wasn't familiar to the jerking action. His second shot pierced the shoulder of another but also broke the branch. His plunge into the murky water was soft, but the sound it made was loud and visual. Before he even resurfaced shots followed him under, the bubbly lines in the water denoting how close those shots had come.

He swam toward the pier dodging the bullets in his less than graceful swim, his v_intovka _slung around his body unwieldy and dragging, though he made it under the pier and through his blurred vision he pulled his pistol, prayed it hadn't jammed, and starting lighting up the Godfathers from below.

Wooden boards gave way to .45 rounds, the final three men taking rounds up their asses. The final one had tried to make a break for it but Mikita had punched through the weathered boards and grabbed the limping man's leg. He yanked it down, the old rotted wood and screws puncturing the man's leg. He screamed inpain and terror as Mikita came up from the water.

His pack was water tight, his medicine all right, though none was to be used for his prisoner.

His first step out of the water was weak, further inspection yielded that one shot had cleanly cut through his calf but he hadn't felt it. He'd clean it out in due time if he wasn't cleaning the blood that was about to spill.

The tribal had headgear, a tribal designed helmet and wore nothing over his chest, his gun having fallen just barely out of his reach. Mikita kicked it out of his way indefinitely and slowly walked toward the man.

_"Hable anglais?" _His Spanish was horrible with his accent, but it got the point across and the tribal responded with a frantic _si_.

Mikita grabbed the man's chin firmly, holding it shut to prevent him from sitting. Silly as it was the tribal hadn't had the strength to chomp down, "I need to know where they went or else I'll cut your tongue off." The knife in his boot came out and he used it to poke at the cheek of the tribal. "You _comprende_? WHERE. TAKE. NINOS"

Defiant, the tribal spat in his face and cursing him as if it were going to kill him. It was just the opposite however. The knife was drilled into the skin, blood drawn and tainting the steel. The cold and wet blade punched and twirled inside the man's mouth after entering from a hole just made in his cheek, his muth opening to scream only opening the wound and destroying the left side of his face, jaw exposed.

He cried, perhaps he had even shit himself as the sound of objects hitting the water below him broke his whimpers. The Godfather gave up as his face burned with blood red pain, Mikita wedging his knife in between teeth and wedging, pointing to the bag that one of the killed men had been wearing. Mikita knew that he wouldn't have gave anything up about where they were, horrible "parents" as they were they wouldn't give up any information exactly regarding the package. The look in his eyes did denote that he knew exactly what he was talking about at least, and it had passed through there. Mikita also knew mercy, the wound in his leg was probably going to be life debilitating, and so his 220 was drawn and he let a red shower come from it in a quick second before the tribal knew what was coming to him, the weight of his body falling back before hanging still in the air, both arms back and head with two holes in it, anchored by his position.

The body of the bag carrier had been less messy, instead a single shot having went upward into his brain and killed him right there. He didn't move the body much, only removed the leather bag and dump the contents on the dirt shore. Tribal medicine and doohickeys had fallen out, any other man would've saw junk, but Mikita saw collectibles. The shrunken heads and the relics weren't worth the bag space however, the map being taken.

It was the crudest piece of paper he had ever seen, the information not much better. He could've asked Archer for a geoscan of the area and have a map on his PokéNav but it was going to be far more effective to know the land as the tribals did. What that encompassed were just circles with names in general directions.

"_Porte_" A finger rested on where he was now, according to the map a circle with a name in the middle, but he knew what the tribals were getting at when they made this map. This little dock was the eastern most outpost owned by the Godfather's according to the scrap of paper. Circle sizes denoted importance and probably man power. That was all the map wrote. Wherever Mikita was going he had to go westward, into the jungle.

Adrenaline drained out of Mikita like the blood from his calf, so tucking the map away he pulled down his pants and treated his wounds as the sun started tilting in the blue. Perhaps he had it easy, he wasn't the one dealing with the chaos he was creating up in the Rocket HQ, but still, he was getting shot at and forcing his way through a rainforests and it was as bad a situation as anyone could be in.

Mikita chuckled to himself in that regard; if not for these scenarios he wouldn't have joined the military. "I like the way this sucks." With that he trudged on into the green brush.


	9. Chapter 5

Under normal circumstances this would've called for an occasion in which the Boss was deened unfit and wrong and his executives could make their moves on his power, however this was not a normal circumstance, nor was it an abnormal one. It was more of a peculiar example. True, the Boss had anticipated some sort of complication, but to what extent was anyone's guess. Even then he had anticipated that it would've been a subdued scenario, not a full on raid on that had transpired. Of course Giovanni gave credit when due and Archer would not doubt that the Boss would give compensation for his defense of the camp. With that off his checklist, he had to deal with what was happening now:

A local tribe had for some reason stolen Dreamstone, was able to acquire mint weapons that had been usually military issue, and was able to penetrate deep within their camp.

'The latter might not be important, but the first two is definitely worth looking into.' Archer objectively thought as his fingers rested against the cool table he was sitting behind at the back of the room. The Saffron building had its fair share of briefing and control rooms, so Archer hadn't left this position in the situation room for the good part of a night and a day.

The junior executive did not even think of alerting his boss, he always had tabs on everything, even when people hadn't wanted him to. As was the benefits and misfortunes of being within the inner ring of Rocket Industries. You knew things, and so did the Boss.

He stood leaning on a console on the desk in the darkened situation room, messy blue hair and his uniform unkempt in the stress off the moment. His eyes had been scanning several of the screens in his rooms and ears constantly getting reports from his aides. No matter how much information poured through his appetite of control over the situation was never satisfied. Archer had no reins over the loose cannon Mikita was, in the end it falling on his decisions and not Archer's

What he had said during his chat in the Guyana morning was true, at least for the moment. Archer hadn't hated the lieutenant on any personal grounds, but how much responsibility lied on the mercenary was staggering and concerning to him. In his bones, he knew his boss was foolhardy for only sending one man. But arguing with him was to be a feckless task in relation to the timeline that was happening now. Archer had to handle an evac with a co-op with the UNGA and extract information from them at the same time. Though for the moment he prepared himself before the conference screen turned on.

"Okay, everyone in the choir, I need a review of what we know so far." Archer rubbed his temples as if trying to clear room in his mind for the onslaught of information he was going to endure. One by one his advisors looked up from their own screens and papers and spoke in sequence:

"El Padrino, the Godfathers, have been on the UNGA lookout list for several years, sir. No action taken because of inactivity. When they do something it is classified as religious terrorism and are so insignificant that the terror council do not considering putting any assets in Guyana because of that. It is widely speculated that the reason they are so isolated and vicious to outsiders is because of exposure to radiation. Their numbers are fairly large for the area they inhibit and are masters and guerilla warfare as seen in the recent raid. They do utilize Pokémon in this kind of warfare. Unconventional warfare at best." Religious terrorists, well-armed enemies, guerilla warfighters, deformed and mutated men. That was his enemy, Mikita's enemy at least. The Rocket grunt giving the summery of the Godfathers sat down and another promptly rose from the round table positioning of the consoles.

"Our research team has congregated around the port that Mikita had also come from, apparently he got in a local garage owner's good graces and he recognized the R that was also evidently on the lieutenant's fake ID. He doesn't speak English but he allowed the remnants of the team to hide out in his parking garage." Cruel, but true, it would be much easier if they'd all been dead. "The science team burned down the camp due to the lack of time they had to pack up. Little to none important data was lost."

They at least had the sensibilities to not give up anything more to the locals.

"What's the casualty count?"

"Pokémon wise or Human?"

"Both."

"Pokémon wise, rough estimates count that our Zubat flock has been effectively eliminated in the region. Only a handful of Pokémon survived and those were personal Pokémon. Human wise? We've lost around thirty men on our side. On the Padrino's side it was at least that much as well. All bodies were burned with the camp as directed by the surviving chief on site: James. He extends a letter of recommendation to our lieutenant for saving who he could."

"Do not alert the next of kin yet, we do not need to expose this op yet. If anyone tries to contact any of the dead say that the jungle is hampering communications."

"Yes sir."

"Archer, UNGA Command is asking for an audience within the next hour."

"Respond that they'll get a meeting within the next five minutes."

"Yes sir."

"UNGA advisor, go."

"Normal protocol in evacuation situations is as simple as they come. In this case there will probably be water craft picking up the survivors from one of the beaches. They expect compensation for this as due their prior warning last month about this month. They will probably investigate what happened to their checkpoints around the camp, however due to the chaos of the situation I have put down the guess that all four checkpoints either failed or were bypassed. No UNGA personnel have been seen around the camp ever since the camp raid."

"Hmph. Noelle, go." Control, what little he had he had to use with the most diligence. Because of that he had an advisor on Mikita.

"Lieutenant Mikita is well versed in jungle warfare, prior experiences in Vietnam, the Philippines, and the area that was once the Soviet-Paki border among other places. As a soldier he should have no problem fighting tribals. His training and prior experiences put him a good distance between them and him and if he plays it safe, he shouldn't die. Any injuries he sustains will probably be treated by him, medic as he is. He's average in the weapon handling as denoted by his range evaluations, but he's experienced at it. Psychological records also denote that he is as avid in scavenging as a junkyard Lillipup. Supplies shouldn't be a problem for him if he keeps engaging them and emerging victorious. He's also a trainer. Granted he doesn't have his own Pokémon or Pokéballs on him, I don't know what that will contribute to but you never know. This region has species that has since died out in the rest of the world and he has studied a good number of them. In short: He is a good soldier. Nothing more, nothing less. Good enough for us."

"You've got a psyche record on him?"

The advisor or Mikita regarded his notebook for a quick few seconds. "Of course. No emotional trauma for nearly a decade of military training and experience, he joined when he was fifteen, or at least no emotional trauma evident. Normally people who live as long and have done deeds like him in the service are sociopathic or enjoying the killing, but no reports has stated that except for the one filled out by one of the Top Rangers as per his dischargement. The Military psychiatrist has noted a general disdain of Pokémon and a dislike of his accent, but nothing too major. What I can surmise is that from the videos I can draw from our UNGA contacts during his trials is that he is rather jaded if anything."

"Is he loyal to a cause?" Archer asked, most concerned over that matter.

"Our cause? Well he doesn't know it yet, but I personally don't think he cares in this situation. He won't betray you if that's what you mean."

"We'll see advisor. Get me a link to UNGA High Comm. Everyone prepare to answer any questions that the UNGA asks. We have to lead them away from the Dreamstone, you know the alibi."

A resounding yes sir had rung out throughout the room and all non-relevant screens had been shut off, the light slightly brightened.

The main screen in the room flickered on, the entire wall having turned into a giant screen to show another round table of people. Military men, generals and commanders had come to face the screen. Archer would've preferred a teleconference as opposed to a video conference given his current appearance, eyes surrounded by tired rings.

'Perhaps it would've served to give them their empathy' Comedic thoughts aside he stood straight from his slouched stance and placed his hands behind his back as he did when he had confronted his Boss.

"This is Rocket Industries, Junior Executive Archer." He opened up with a brisk introduction, the rest of his grunts momentarily rising and standing at attention.

"United Nations Government Army Command." The most decorated man of the military group spoke as he sat in his lofty leather chair in a simple, tan walled room. "This is General Wallingford and we are not surprised." True, they had warned the Rocketeers of going into the region beforehand for their evolution stone excavation, but it was hardly the first time they had warned and hardly the first time that it fell upon deaf ears.

"The warnings you sent us were heeded, but science is dangerous frontier General."

"What you found was a battlefield, not a frontier Junior Executive. Scientists do not belong on a battlefield."

"Under most circumstances we wouldn't dare to approach one, but we were raided by a tribal group which even the UNGA hasn't taken any action against yet. You sound like we are at fault for our losses as opposed to the failure of your own troops you sent to guard us."

"Our men are none of your concern Junior Executive."

"Yet they are because we can presume that the checkpoints around our camp failed, and no warning was set our way. How can we possibly do more field research if the UNGA soldiers seem to disappear when they are needed General Wallingford?"

"I believe we are to discuss the parameters of your men's evacuation, not UNGA issues."

"I believe it is not too complicated to rescue fifteen men. Little to no equipment."

"Fifteen out of fifty something men? Can you remind me what were you doing down there." Another commander had spoken up; the pins on his collar that of a Major General.

"Digging for strains of evolutionary stones."

"With fifty men?"

"We had just hit a rather large strain." The mining advisor had spoken up with an innocent tone, backing up Archer's statement.

With a very visible roll of his eyes Wallingford quickly regarded the rest of the commanders in disbelief. "We'll be sure to check up on the camp if that's the case. No need to let resources go to waste."

The Rocketeers had anticipated this, the most innocent looking of the advisors taking the cue to speak up. "During the raid the tribals used fire-type Pokémon, burnt down most of the camp as well as the area around it. Very dangerous. I wouldn't advise it." They set fire to the immediate area of course, also using explosives to grind up the ground. It might've been extreme but nothing was too much when it came to hiding things from the last military on Earth.

They had been as guilty as sin of covering something up, but for better or worse the UNGA Command didn't care, or maybe they had the situation already under control. A silence persisted, both side expecting someone to open up talks about the men stranded in Guyana and possible compensation. For Archer it got unbearable, there were more important things to do today.

"Now about that evac General Wallingford. We're willing to play several hundred thousand for compensation…"

* * *

The jungle hadn't exactly been kind to Mikita, though the locals hadn't been much bother to him. There were Pokémon that of course lived in that secluded forest, some that he had never seen before, and he had been around the block quite a few times.

As a medical student he was taught of species that had died out and disappeared from the world. There had once been a time where more than a few thousand species of Pokémon roamed the Earth, hundreds of years ago after the bombs fells. Though they might've disappeared from the public thought and the general knowledge, they existed in the medical books and records in the case that some examples of extinct species were to emerge. It happened specifically with the Relicanth species a little less than half a century ago, a species of the old times come to new.

Of course Guyana was the definition of that. It existed where the old times and the new had clashed and existed in symbiosis. So that was why he was able to see an Aipom tease him as he shuffled his way through the brush. That species had disappeared from the regions of Johto and Sinnoh, though it survived in Guyana.

"How's that the irradiated rain treating you buddy?" He chided the Aipom as he broke branches in his path. There was a certain quality that countries had if they had been hit by nuclear ordnance in the past. Most of them not good, but certain Pokémon seemed to have thrived in the subtle radiation. Mikita would never fully understand the phenomenon, the correlation between the Pokémon decline and the lingering radiation, but it was something that he had recognized the approaching "problem".

The Aipom hadn't understood, but laughed at the tone Mikita talked in, knowing that he wasn't a hostile man that had been so common in the forests. The Aipom had been one of many that had seen the ex-soldier take down the Crocanaw on the beach, but it understood the difference between self-defense and murder in some primal sense. The Pokémon around there had avoided the Godfathers, knew that they were trouble, so giving a foreigner that was killing them clairvoyance was one of the better things the Pokémon of the forest could do.

Archer hadn't been the only one in a meeting, the Pokémon around him talking in their languages over why he was there and what they should've done with him.

He understood some of it, but not enough. In the end they left him alone, except for the more curious among them.

In his eavesdropping his body continued on autopilot, driving him in the general direction of west. He had been lost a long time, metaphorically and physically, but he never stopped himself from getting more lost. Stubborn as the ex-soldier was he figured he at least could've been lost in the right direction.

Looking at the map with no guide wasn't at all improving the situation, but in the approaching dusk it dawned that one had been following him for the last few miles.

He snapped his head up to the Aipom. "Hey there."

It waved all three hands in a proper greeting, saying its name in a hello. He'd been asking Pokémon for direction one too many times, even in the army he occasionally asked a Sandshrew or one of the local bird species for directions or intelligence. Silly as he looked doing it, it achieved more than what talking to the human populace could bring.

He took out his map, "You mind helping me out Curious George?" The Aipom cheerfully agreed, jumping from tree branch to the ground next to him and then up his body again to rest on top of his head.

"You know where I am?" He asked in the light tone he used to talk to these types of natives.

The Aipom moved, nearly smothering his head as it instead used its longer tail to point out a place on the map. There had been about eighteen outposts that were listed on the map, the Aipom putting him just west of the first which he had somehow bypassed.

"Thanks." The Aipom had cheered something that sounded "your welcome" but he had paid the price of his army cap as it ran off into the jungle. It would've annoyed him more if he had been in Afghanistan and if it was a Furret that had done that, but the Dragunov drawn forward from its sling hadn't been raised and aimed at the scurrying Aipom.

He backtracked his way through the green brush, more aware of the fact that he had nearly come upon another Godfather camp. The smell was unmistakable the first time he passed through, but he ignored, too busy keeping an eye on the Aipom that had been trailing him. It was the smell of smoky wood and moonshine, peering through the thick canopy he saw the smoky pillar that came from the ground.

Perhaps it had been one of the stills he had always come upon in pirate bases; he needed a drink if anything.

Fortunately the tribals that had occupied the camp were way ahead of him.

They'd quite clearly been celebrating, probably over the "successful" raid that Mikita had failed to prevent, not noticing the ruffle of the shrubs that Mikita hid in while crouched. The Houndour had noticed, but as was usually the case it was parked, neck tied by a leash, by a pole. It barked incessantly, blood thirstily at the less than well hidden lieutenant. Though in their less than sober state the tribals hadn't noticed as they frighteningly played and danced with themselves and the metal rods they held.

"God damn RPGs?" Mikita whispered in curiosity, drawing the suppressed zip gun he had scavenged from the tribals he took down on the beach. RPGs were a rare sight among pirates, most arm caches that contained them quickly dug up and taken by the UNGA during their formation. They were a deadly, easy to use weapon. In the equally rare occasions the Army fielded armored units they fell to the weapons when they were otherwise busy fighting off Tyranitar or Nidokings. Main battle tanks were sturdy; though Mikita didn't have the luxury of reactive armor.

The zip gun was a crude weapon compared to the RPG, but unlike it, it did not usually wield explosive results. In fact it was just the opposite. The gun was a crude design of metal tubing and rust, but it took .45ACP rounds, sharing ammo with his pistol. It fired rounds silently, as was the purpose of the bulging bit on the end of the barrel, the suppressed effect working nicely in silencing the dog that had spotted him.

He didn't exactly need to clear out the camp, but he did need to get onto the trails that led from it and presumably to other. Drunks with rocket launchers were hard to clear up though given the high possibility of an accidental discharge destroying everyone within a good radius. Even if he did clear out the camp, Mikita wasn't too keen on taking one for himself.

They'd all been dancing around the fire, their leather huts glowing with the orange color. Seven huts paired up with seven tribal individuals and he knew that no surprises were to be had.

"Know your enemy Mikita..." The ex-soldier talked to himself as he waited for his moment to strike from the bush. It was a partial quote from ancient tacticians, known only because unlike the world around him, war never changes. He gazed at the dancing tribals, swigs of booze in their hand. There was a part of him that had wanted to write them off as a backward people but the feeling was suppressed by what the Army had told to him to do in terms of tolerance. Most of them wore minimal denim or leather of some sort, head dresses distinctly reminding him that they were at one point the Native Americans he had heard in the stories of the old American west by his town's local grandma.

It was a ritual dance, one of victory that seemed to conform to the fire they surrounded, though it was less graceful than it should have been, even to a foreigner's eye. The medic that Mikita was questioned what effects moonshine would've had on the Scyther they were joined by, but the effects seem to be about the same, intoxicated by the drink.

The skin of the tribals was dark and rugged, almost as if they had been wearing skin colored denim over it. Indigenous people are often resistant to their surroundings, but even then their skin wouldn't have resembled a Sandile's as the men and women in front of them appeared to have.

"Not like it's bulletproof." Mikita said, cocking the 220's slide back before he attacked.

* * *

He needed a place to stay for the night and he was about to make his own vacancy.

Mikita didn't rush into the attack, idly thinking he was giving the tribals a fair chance in their impaired state, raising his pistol and going through the targets in a process of elimination.

It was tragically an easy task, the drunken tribals not even seeing, or even hearing, their deaths as the man had practically waltzed into their camp, the Scyther barely even swung its arms as a blade was drawn and twisted into its jaw as Mikita emptied the rounds in his pistol's magazine in his attack. The less than sober state of the surviving tribals was a shield, whatever pain felt was numbed by the influence by the whisky. That isn't to say that they survived, most bled out, though one had survived the rounds to his chest. The RPG tried its best to be steadied by the Godfather holding it, the difficult procedure giving Mikita enough time to punt his hand off the trigger of the RPG before he blew the entire camp to hell. In his drunken struggle the Godfather was granted strength enough to hold onto the launcher, ending up in a tug of war with the ex-soldier. The forest had made these tribals strong, almost as strong as a duty soldier. Unfortunately he lacked foresight.

Mikita reversed his tug into a push, forcing the tribal to the ground with the tube on his chest. The tribal, arms free, put his finger around the trigger to blast the lieutenant into the air, but he only ended up eliminating himself.

The Rocket was fired as Mikita kept the launcher point directly up, ears temporarily deafened as the back blast came through the opposite end. The RPG round flew up in its winding contrails, harmlessly exploding and causing the Noctowls and the Chatot around them too fly up from the canopy, disturbed by the explosion.

The lieutenant was shell shocked, though it was preferable to having a burnt hole in his bare chest as the Godfather under him did. Collapsing, he closed his eyes and let his hearing return to him as he heard the birds fly out around him, the still running fire offering warmth and heat in the increasingly approaching darkness.

In the Army they told the squads to always be wary of their anti-tank gunner.

In layman's terms, "Watch the back blast." Mikita whispered to himself, testing his hearing.

His Dragunov was a bad mattress, metal stabbing into his back and causing discomfort. Sitting up, his hearing returned to hear the sound of electronic bells and the vibrations on his hands, burnt by the RPG round's firing gasses.

Stiffly, he fingered his PokéNav and raised it to his mouth.

"It's Micky."

"As it should be. Status report?" Archer asked in his usual, almost dog like demeanor.

"Tracked the river craft as far as I could. Proceeded West after extracting intel from a Godfather lookout. Setting up for a night of rest." Stumbling as he got up on his feet, he walked no better than how the drunks had as he slowly made his way to one of the copper and metal stills. Taking one of the filled glass bottles in his free hand he waited for Archer's response.

"Are you seriously considering taking a night off when there's a chase going on?"

The moonshine was a bit on the light side, silvery and spicy to its taste, but as for alcohol's effects on the body there was none. Maybe because it was he was Russian, Siberian was roughly the same thing, but drinking never had bothered him as it did to the lightweights among his army comrades. It did clear his throat however.

"Respectfully sir, we're all human, even tribals need to sleep. I won't lose too much, _da_?" There was some aggression behind his explanation, some unspoken defiance, but he downed the rest of the bottle as he began to pat down the bodies, hoping some numbing effect would kick in.

There was no more actionable intel, no more maps or documents on them, but ammo was taken and open eyes closed. Habitually his palms came to close the eyes of those who continued to stare up into sky, stars in their eyes. Whether or not he was in duty or not, he would've patted down the body and done this all the same, thankful that these particular traits that he exhibited had followed him past his honorable service.

His shot placement wasn't at all bad. Two weeks hadn't thrown off his aim. Most of the tribals had suffered from lung shots, bar the Scyther, whose exoskeletal skull had been effectively disfigured as its body twitched in its dead form on the ground.

"Don't expect me to be out for much more than four." Hours of course, but Archer would've been only satisfied if the answer had been minutes. "You need rest too. Trust me; it's better that way Archer. Keep rolling me intel. Noelle out." Mikita dropped the call and dropped the empty magazine in his pistol, not exactly able to tell which was more disposable.

As if he could feel the Force thousands of miles away, Archer quite possibly threw a hissy fit. Typically it was supposed to be vice versa, at least when using the metaphor of frontline troops to higher officers than he, the unappreciation or the unknowingness of a command who didn't give a damn about frontline soldiers. Inexperienced or not, he had no right to be mad at the only asset the Rockets probably had on the ground.

"Smug." Mikita had thought about himself aloud, walking the perimeter of the small camp. Most of his words to Archer could be summarized as such, however he hadn't exactly been thinking too highly of anyone who outranked him as of recently. Yes it was irrational, but he was testing his freedom, at least while he was alive.

The bodies were all pushed aside into a gully in the camp and Mikita promptly placed himself on one of the plastic crates that surrounded the fire, providing light and warmth, eyes intent on the crude map that was drawn before him. It could've been originally paper towel, flimsy enough to be always under the threat of simply disintegrating into the air.

That was precaution enough for him to analyze the map in the lull of the night, etching it in his mind as if it had been an operation's playbook.

His hand traced the lines to and from the visible outposts in order from the "_Destilatorio_" to the "_Torre de radio_". One would have to think one of the Godfather's eastern most outposts would've been something more akin to an actual outpost rather than a place of drink. Not that the ex-soldier was complaining of course, however one of the larger circles that designated an outpost was fairly close by to compensate.

The vibrations of his throat butchered his pronunciation of what the map had called the particular outpost: "_Torre de radio_". There was no indication of how far away it was or if there had been any other locations around him, but there were paths that led from that outpost to a network of roads if the faded lines were to be trusted. As good a place to branch out to if any.

Whatever the path, they all led to home…Or at least, the Godfather's base of operations. The largest circle was in the far west with only a crudely drawn house denoting what it actually was. Whether or not it was implied he knew that it was more than that.

"Wellington." He uttered the name of the location. It was a very special topic among the books he had hit during his academy days. The past was special to him in some ways; if not for the fact it seemed to have been neglected as of recent in the history books, he wouldn't probably indulged in age old scripts and fact books as he did. He recognized history had repeated again and again. He understood why the old world countries of Pakistan and Afghanistan were still so hard to control because it wasn't the first time the occupation was attempted. It wasn't the first time the old region of Australia was a bitch to push into because Australia was a desolate wasteland even before the neutron bombings.

The chances of nuclear fire raining again was slim, slim enough that they probably would never fall from the sky as they did on United States Air Force Base Wellington three centuries ago.

"No wonder why they're insane. _Sumasshedshiy." Madmen_. Only those types of people would've set up their home on top of a nuclear ground zero.

Wellington was the site where a Neutron bomb had exploded, killing the Americans, but not the base itself. It was one of a pair of ordnance that had been dropped, the second one taking out the American naval port in the northern coastal areas of Guyana. Ironic that the first country hit by the first neutron bombs had survived, as opposed to most of western Russia and the American states who dealt out the most launches and strikes.

The Godfathers. Perhaps they had been coherent some time ago, but radiation does strong and strange things to the mind…As did the moonshine he was sipping.

He made a decision before his drinking had done anything much more to his mind, "It's decided," The lone man had agreed with himself, validating his choice with his military persona. "_Torre de radio_ it is then."


	10. Chapter 6

It had been a long time since Giovanni had been surrounded by so many horrible people. These people were all the best businessmen, mercenaries, trainers, executives, and advisors he had. They came from all stems of life, lured by the prospect of working for Giovanni in Rocket Industries for the hope of making money anyway anyone could. Former hitmen, the dirtiest of players, the most ingenious of his industry were at his usage.

Evil men and women as they were, he had made it clear time and time again, that they all belonged to him. As was the iron grip that he had cast out upon his lower subordinates, across the business as well. The collection of five men and women in his meeting office high above Saffron in his distinctive gray ambiance that he kept were all his bitches. Not to say he would've said exactly that to the Ariana, the marketing leader (and supposed consort in some way) of Rocket Industries, but the general point had gotten across from the day they had first enlisted in Rocket, and especially after their first mistake.

All of them had made mistakes (or rather _a _mistake) and made it their last out of fear of invoking the usually calm and collected Boss. All of them bar the youngest executive of course, the one that had been awakened from his rest and brought before Giovanni on the floor that was designated his.

Giovanni hadn't owned the Silph building, but he was damn near close to, as well as the company of its name sake.

Archer glanced over his loose digital watch. It was the morning of March 3rd for him. In Guyana it was another time and to be honest his mind was probably just as far away as he settled himself into the suave leather chair. Mikita's advice to sleep was eventually heeded, he being too proud to not listen for an hour after he dropped his call like an angsty teenager.

What shut eye he did grab only helped stave off another impulse to nod off, but doing that in the presence of his Boss would've been a bad move. In Archer's mind however, what was the Boss to say about making good decisions come these recent turn of events?

The Boss glanced around the rooms at the security cameras, now turned off for the meeting before addressing his executives and generals.

"I believe your personal aides have all alerted you to the situation developing in South America." Giovanni idly ran his hand over his Persian's ears, it itself idly next to him as if a body guard.

"I also do believe you know that nothing that is to be discussed here today will leave this room." The rose gold and black Pokéball that was the Persian's was drawn, enlarged, shot a red beam at the waiting feline who was absorbed and broken down, and placed back into the man's suit pocket in a well-practiced motion. Even a CEO was expected to know how to train Pokémon in the current day and age. Whoever or whatever he was training, he was very sure that he did it right.

Archer had begun to sway in his lack of rest, trying his best to keep his form straight in the chair even as one of his arms supported him on the table.

"My Junior Executive Archer," He immediately picked up his head as Giovanni spoke his name, "has assumed control of the Operation in Guyana." Archer drew some sort of pride and recognition from that, non-chalantly flattening his uniform as the other executives and generals around him took a second to process the information.

The former gang leader Petrel had no hesitations as he double checked the fact vocally, "Respectfully Giovanni, I don't approve of the choice of advisor in this operation…" Of course Archer was only sitting across from him, an annoyed twitch of his eyebrow his only response as Petrel went on. "Our scientists dug up a god damn Mew, perfectly preserved. If anyone else would've found it they would've squandered it on something like…I don't know…Something frivolous like radiological dating and have the UNGA escorting their butts home in a god damned naval battle group. This discovery deserves that, if not a…more seasoned commander such as myself or Proton." Giovanni could've afforded a battle group for a few days, but none of them before him except for Archer knew of the asset he had actually sent in. They were self-centered though, uncaring of that missing fact yet. They had all known of the discovery, the UNGA threat, and the tribal raid that had transpired over the last two days, but not much more than that.

"Archer here needs a trial by fire, simple as that."

"Why didn't you send him my way then?" The comment was short and quick, the old and gruffy voice coming from one of Kanto's Gym Leaders in the meeting. Blaine had always been a crucial asset scientifically to Giovanni, even more so these last few years, but the fire-type Gym Leader had been feeling almost as much pressure as Giovanni when Dreamstone fell into the hands of tribals. The difference between the old Gym Leader and the young business man was that only one of them actually showed any worry for better or worse. The Gym Leader sunk in his chair as Giovanni shot him a short glare.

"I don't think a validation of a new executive can also be done alongside the discovery of a fossilized Mew." Ariana had said, her white leather gloves worriedly tapping across the fine wood table. Everyone had seen the point of Petrel; his experience in managing gang members not to be questioned, his hands on experiences with them was something that Giovanni had lacked, however Giovanni had the experience of foresight.

"Archer can handle a simple delivery job Ariana. I do not have this much mistrust of the greener executives as you think." His confidence was evident in the move of his hand and the punctual volume of his voice. "Remember that I allowed Proton here to dig up the remains from Lavender Town as his trial. He did all right for a job more suited for Petrel."

It was an insult to an extent, though the entire crowd of them allowed the statement to slide, the younger Archer stifling a very discreet chuckle.

"Only one casualty, remember?" Proton had silently boasted, sipping on the golden bourbon that he had only taken from the drink cart. That task was carried out at dusk for the sake of acquiring DNA from Pokémon that had died years in the past and to compare to the DNA of the Pokémon that were living at the time.

"If Proton here can get away with the act with only one dead Marowak, a necessary death, I believe Archer here can also do the same in regards to re-attaining Dreamstone. Archer also has the buffer of not being the one who pulls the trigger."

"I whacked it with a shovel." Proton had corrected.

"So Archer's asset on the ground has it even easier."

"I don't think you understand that a registered terrorist group has taken Dreamstone from us while butchering one of our….MY scientist teams Giovanni." The fire-type Gym Leader was fiery in that accusation, but still Giovanni seemed unphased as he crossed his legs and locked his hands together.

"You act like it is the UNGA that has raided the camp Blaine." Giovanni had retorted.

"As if Archer here has any experience in counter-terrorism."

"The asset on the ground does though." Archer had finally interjected. Perhaps Giovanni was going to drag on the current subject for a longer time, but the particularly observant Blaine knew the singular form of the word asset was used. He didn't say anything though, the rest of the unaware cast taking it one step at a time as Giovanni twitched a look at Archer in annoyance.

"So that little leaflet employment of yours worked finally Boss?" Petrel has asked, slightly impressed at the simple tactic.

"Of course it would've. No greedy pirate would've passed that sum of cash up." Ariana had sucked up. Giovanni's selection of the lower Hoeannic Sea and Pacific Ocean pirates was a planned action. Unlike those of Mongolia or the Middle East, most of them had been civilized people turned into pirates, not starting out as one of the latter.

"How many pirates?"

"Not pirates." Giovanni had corrected.

"Raiders then?" Proton threw out a guess, "Mercs?"

"Perhaps Archer here can fully explain who we have on the ground, since he has been in contact with the asset." It was perhaps the first time that Archer had garnered the attention of all the generals and executives at once. More reason enough for him to straighten his wobbly stance and straighten his short teal hair as it added any sense of professionalism in the novice.

"Mercenary by definition, yes. But he didn't come from the southern water regions… UNGA affiliation actually…" The young executive correctly guessed the reactions of shock and disbelief.

"I can't believe you Giovanni…" Proton had accused. "You've compromised your own operation."

"You'd be right if not for the fact I personally cleared him."

For once, Archer and Giovanni had been on the same side of the argument, albeit barely. "Giovanni here has his reasons for choosing this cast-away. He was betrayed by the UNGA."

It was Archer's first presentation ever since he dropped High School barely a decade or so ago, describing that the surviving researchers had been exfiled from the region and enroute to Kanto for debriefing. He was given credit enough negotiating and turning away the UNGA from interfering in their Guyana affairs any further, but that would've easily been taken away and then some if the true operation was failed.

"I figure it would be easier to discuss support assets as opposed to the one man on the ground." The group had still been reeling from the revelation that the 2nd lieutenant was the only asset on the ground, but what buttering up Archer could grind past his teeth was bolstered by Giovanni's high recommendation of the ex-soldier.

Archer had been left alone to plan, Giovanni letting Archer present himself as per to approve himself for a higher position. It didn't mean Giovanni was leaving Archer alone on what was considerably an increasingly difficult situation forming around the most invaluable find as of recent, but rather he had set up guidelines that would make it so that Archer could not at all fail if he was actually trying. Judging by the stance as he thumbed over his notebook, the glint of his forehead even in the well aired meeting room, he was putting all he could in it.

"Ariana," Archer had addressed the red haired woman, her white dress/uniform pristine in the room of mostly black and grey and redwood. "Because this operation surrounding Dreamstone is at the top levels, coinciding with Operation _Rebirth, _every executive will have to be involved in some shape or way. That means information control." Ariana in her marketing position for Rocket industries had practiced this sort of censoring before. Information had always been a key weapon, even civilians such as them understood that, but they were armed with it better than Mikita.

Operation Rebirth was a very cynical plan, some machination of Giovanni that he kept very tight lipped about even among his executives. Blaine seemed to know what it was, but asides from the name and general scope of it: The study of Pokémon mutation control, no one other than Blaine and Giovanni knew the true purpose or when it had started. Archer was getting a little more information on the project second hand from the Boss, but it was never enough. It was never good to get overly curious about Giovanni in general though.

"The deaths of the majority of the research team and what we were doing in Guyana has to be low-key, the original alibi of evolution stone mining stays at it is. We cannot blame the UNGA for it for the fear of them investigating the incident more upon the outrage in the public. Remember to keep the survivors tight lipped about the 2nd lieutenant."

"Very well deary." She answered sweetly in her maternal tone. Giovanni noted that she used it with the younger grunts more than she had with the child they bore together, though he didn't have anything to say on the matter. Silver was fine on his own with Ariana….At least what he can infer from second hand knowledge. Archer continued assigning roles.

"Petrel and Proton, I assume you can piss off the UNG by holding a few…..Rather disruptive hearings in Unova for next few weeks? Should disrupt foreign affairs and deployments enough that the Army won't remobilize into Guyana."

The two had shared a quick look at each other, sharing a shrug, grunting in the affirmative.

"And Blaine…." Archer hadn't actually encountered the Gym Leader before this event actually. He was one of the more respected in the Indigo League, if not for his disposition it was for his studiousness and intelligence. Perhaps that was why the League assigned him a gym on top of an active volcano. Lunatic wasn't really a word anyone would call him, the reigning champion having actually known the old man since his birth, but he was different. "I assume that preparations for Dreamstone's arrival will be ready?"

"My laboratory underneath Cinnabar is ready, all DNA extraction and splicing equipment are ready as they have been. As long as the UNGA undesirable gets it back to us in one piece, Rebirth will finally begin in proper..." It was evident that the project was going on for years, to what extent almost no one would know, but in the end it would be a question of why, something that has eluded Archer. There was a question he could ask himself though, the validity of actually relying on the single ex-soldier as Blaine just pointed out. Archer had neglected to tell them Mikita's name. If he had Blaine would've been more supportive of a former challenger to his gym.

"Boss, I would like to inquire to why you are so insistent on letting this be a one-man operation on the ground?" Giovanni chuckled at Archer's question, almost as if he had told a funny joke to the ire of everyone in the room. He stared out at the windows and saw his eyes reflected in them, their almost unnatural blue.

"He had that look in his eye." Giovanni grinned to himself. "Silver eyes are a good sign for me." Arianna had barely understood, though everyone else had been lost.

Proton had jumped in at that moment, still sipping his bourbon. "I presume there is more to that Boss? Perhaps some mythical performance on the battlefield? A battle where he killed scores of pirates and Pokémon with only knife and a dismembered arm as his weapons?"

"He is a seasoned soldier at least. Discharged over killing ten Garchomp with only a shotgun and a knife." Giovanni had memorized the reason why Mikita had been discharged, though the reason hadn't impressed his executives yet.

"An exceptional service does not mean he works alone." Petrel had known this best, his hits on rival gangs never a lone-wolf affair. Even then, that was small scale compared to the occasion happening in Guyana.

"We do not need more than one soldier for a simple delivery job."

"The job is simple but its package is beyond the lives of the research team and the soldier alone. I'm inclined to send in more forces on my- " Archer had disapproved as he had before the ex-soldier had gotten to Guyana in his personal office.

Giovanni squinted his eyebrows, the older members of the group holding onto the arms of their seats. It was a move Giovanni had only done when he was frustrated, and that venom he spat was built up due to the fact he had shown his anger few and far between.

It was Archer's first mistake as an executive of any type under Rocket, trying to undermine an Operation that Giovanni had personally called for and was deeply rooted in the man.

"The circumstance of his discharge proves to bolster his determination. Lieutenant Noelle is a loyal man."

Archer still stood in front of his seat, arms supporting him on the table as he automatically spat out a retort. "Then why was he discharged?"

"Because he IS a loyal man."

"How so?" Archer's tone had gotten more accusational in the audience of the other executives, hoping they would see his point, but he would find no help as Giovanni's voice stayed in the air like virulent smog.

"He is loyal to his cause." Through years of business negotiations, his voice was trained; the sound of fear had replaced the one of calm that was his usual tone. His finger pointed at Archer. "Whatever the cause may be, a soldier's duty never leaves him and a soldier's duty is to follow his cause."

"Our cause." Proton had silently spoken.

"If you are so much concerned whether or not a trained soldier is able to perform simple tasks that he has done his entire life, I can project the same worry on you. You cannot think yourself a better man in this regard, if you are so concerned, then I would have you go down there and do the work yourself!"

"I have men willing to do so!"

"And so help me if they do try I will have your head on the horn of my Nidoking. This operation is moving toward its goal and I do not need any more input on something that has already been squared away Archer!" The outburst had proved to silence and plant Archer down in his seat, the fist balled from the pointed hand hitting the table, settling the conflict. Everyone had tensed up, holding their breaths, experience telling them to only exhale when Giovanni had. When he did his breath was cold, and he was tired. Outbursts like that were few and far between for Rocket leader for good reason. He closed his sapphire eyes, "Archer. I understand you do not agree with me on this. But I will not have unnecessary force interfere with this. I have already included pay in the case that something like this happens; another rapid deployment is something I cannot risk for the sake of Operation Rebirth."

His head moved to regard Archer, even though closed, but when they opened it had spooked Archer enough. Any other executive under Giovanni would've quelled that rebellious flame that had lingered, but Archer was different.

* * *

The meeting went on to detail other small issues regarding the operation, how the deaths of the science team would've hit their shares on the market, the public outcry, but it wasn't anything they hadn't trained for or experienced before. The meeting was really just called to present Archer as the leader of the operation in Guyana and to detail what everyone else should be doing in the meanwhile. To Archer it was also an opportunity to upset the Boss in front of all of his executives, though that hadn't gone to plan.

The Boss maintained an aura around him, one that often kept his jaw tight and mouth closed when he talked. Foolishly he thought he could've overcome it in that moment, but he failed in that regard, palms still sweating as he returned to his office.

His personal aide had followed him, one of the ranking officers from his Rocket grunt division, holding his black Rocket jacket for him.

It was cold as always in the office, but the blood running through his veins proved to be warming enough.

The junior executive hadn't even sat down when he issued an order.

"Captain. Mobilize Arcane Unit into the Devon outpost off of Cuba." Giovanni didn't usually keep track on movements of Rocket resources, especially when there had been so many around the world. Redirecting one of his personal units to a partner company's outpost would hardly raise questions. However Arcane Unit was one of the more volatile resources Rocket had, in possession of flame throwers that had all but been outlawed by military use.

"May I inquire why, sir?"

"This is something personal. Arcane reports directly to me. I don't intend to directly interfere with the operation, but if something comes up, I want it covered."

His aide was hesitant before he bowed out, biting his lips and eyes darting as if regarding his angels and demons on his shoulders. It was scraping too close to the boundaries Giovanni had set, but left with no other option the Aide confirmed the order and walked out, full knowing of the metaphorical dominos that he would've very much tipped in following those orders.

Blaine and Giovanni had retired to the younger's office, sipping liquor to the same old darkened view of Saffron.


	11. Chapter 7

A/N: Alright, shout out to the Anon for picking up on Radiolab in my Q&A section regarding mutations, and shout out to the four hundred views this has. I usually update every one hundred views give or take a few days. So if you want to get more chapters, read, share, review.

* * *

"I swear I didn't have that much to drink…" Mikita's first groans after the five hours of sleep were pained and groggy. One of the leather mats of the huts had been a good place to collapse on but he never remembered doing so.

Mikita wasn't a heavy drinker, but there was no other explanation to why he had felt so bad waking up and rising.

The sharp pain in his side where a bullet had cut through had been slept on unfortunately, so he limped out into the still darkened Guyana with his pistol in his hand just in case someone had come and checked in.

Bullet wounds were a very common injury he had to treat during his service, to himself was not an odd occurrence and his body had been used to the pain, but that hadn't stopped the surged of sharp bites at his pain tolerance that had come with the injuries. Thankfully modern medicine had progressed from the textbooks of the twentieth century he had often studied, and the biofoam that he had brought from the medical van had been diligently painted on his wounds before they had been bandaged up. The foam filled in the holes to an extent, the healing process of his weathered body sped up underneath the bandaged wraps.

His hand ran over his face in an attempt to wipe the dreariness off his being. He should've been used to this; he really had to have been through years of waking up in the middle of pirate raids. But then again army doctrine never allowed drinking on base.

Still, the morning shot of the remaining moonshine was substitute enough for the coffee the officers were allowed.

The bodies that were thrown in the gully hadn't moved from their still positions. For a second Mikita contemplated taking the starter fluid that he had found around the camp and dousing the bodies before taking a burning stick from the fire and lighting them like a pyre. But he had been apparently too drunk before to do it and he was too hung over now.

The hang over he had wasn't that bad however, the shock of water against his face by dumping his entire head in one of the buckets they had mostly taken that weariness off as he shouldered the Dragunov once again and faced the trail leading out of the camp.

It was hardly a trail but rather just a dirt line cutting through an increasingly claustrophobic brush, but he wasn't complaining, not when four hundred thousand in money lay at the end of it.

"Dreamstone. Stolen. No-Eye'd bastard. Retrieve." He reminded himself, remembering his goal in lieu of the command HQ that often relayed and reminded him and his squad of their tasks. With one rough yank he had taken up his field pack onto one arm, and he marched on as soldiers boys do.

* * *

The brush scraped at his skin and snagged his clothing despite his free arm fanning the foliage away. Green bombarded his vision that muddled with the dirt of the ground. Hundreds of years of accelerated and mutated growth had led to forests and rain forests like these to have been growing without bounds. Perhaps for better or worse, humanity has not had the effects it had once on the green Earth. He didn't study ecology or the environment extensively outside the typical tactical discussion on fighting in foreign landscapes, but he did know that once a long time ago, these types of forests were cut down by miles and miles for their resources. Even telling by the ruins of the old cities, they needed the wood and the steel and the rock to sustain them. Stalingrad, New York, Berlin, Tehran, the neutron bombs fell and the people withered away, the cities only falling because of a hundred years of neglect. Tokyo had survived due to the old nation of Japan intensively researching counter-measures to such attacks, that and little Western resources were on the island when the bombs and the ICBMs flew. Unfortunately the Japanese were among only a handful of states and nations to survive the fire, and they emerged the only ones left able pick up the pieces.

The NATO, the UN, the Soviet Union, the United States all disappeared in the fire. The last great alliances fell, and so a new one had to be made in its place. The United Nations Government was made to bind the survivors together with the island nation of Japan at the head, as survivors from the fallen nations came, the UNG grew bigger, and no wars continued as rebuilding took place only mere decade after the bombs fell.

Radiation from these attacks hampered these efforts around the stricken nations, many people died because of it, but none foresaw the mutations of the animals that survived the war and how much more deadlier they would be to humanity.

In 2080, the UNG Army was formed from the remains of the Japanese Self Defense Force, the American Pacific Fleet that was sailing during the war, the Russian and American arms caches in Siberia and the Koreas, and the Chinese army to combat the growing Pokémon threat. That threat was only ended after scientists were able to connect the dots between Pokémon and their connection to the particular nuclear ordnances, and the ability to break down matter.

Pokémon aside, there were mercenaries and pirates and terrorists, and they were the average fare today for the UNGA. It hadn't been long enough for the nostalgia of those enemies and his service to come back, but when it had reached that time it would've been an odd choice of memories.

Most people saw the UNGA now a days as a peace army, strictly one of tradition, but the news hardly ever reported on the pirates and the mercenaries throughout the world unless a passenger liner or an oil refinery had been hit with a particularly rating-rising outcome.

"God damn greenery!" He yelled at the forest, intent on the now.

As much as the forest grew, humans had been engulfed by it and lived in it. The Godfathers were these types of people, honed by their environment, coexisting with Pokémon as opposed to combatting them. With their exposure to radiation, perhaps their skin was rough like a Sandile's, evolving as Pokémon did. Perhaps it also explained the lack of eyes the lead tribal had. Of course he didn't have any contacts in the country to verify if his suspicions were true.

He really shouldn't have been saying anything, his home town was Fortree, the only houses that weren't on the outskirts of the town were in the trees, hundreds of feet up away from the local Pokémon.

The ruffles of the canopy above him made his head snap up multiple times, his gun pointed up in alert. As he made his way through the forest, perhaps he at least had someone to confirm his suspicions and at least gather more information than he had from Archer.

The Dragunov was unshouldered, slung over onto his back, and his dominant hand rested on his pistol holster just in case as he regarded the forest as he pushed through the vague dirt path.

He saw their eyes in the brightening night, the golden and red glows of those who watched the ex-soldier. It made him uneasy, cramp, a feeling he only felt when on patrol in hotly contested towns out in the Middle East.

"Anyone willing to talk?" Mikita joked to himself. There was hardly anything welcoming about his figure. The weapons that were on him, how his hand rested in an old and well-practiced form around the grip of a pistol, the medical mask that covered his mouth, the furrow of his eye brows and the cut of his hair was hardly the visage of a peaceful man. Then again the Pokémon that lived and had lived in those forests were used to them.

Maybe he'd accidently step on a Beedrill's nest, a Nidoking's lair, or maybe the tail of an Arbok, but there was never the intent of harming the peaceful locals if he was given the choice. That much the Pokémon that hid in plain sight knew that he was different than the Godfathers.

It was an unmistakable sound: The caw and cry of a Hoot-Hoot. Mikita found himself planted onto a tree's side in cover as he surveyed the area for the owl Pokémon, the creak of the branch above him and he looked up. The red eyes stared into his silver ones and in that moment he knew the owl had answered his half-serious, half-comical question.

Generally the tongue of avian species he knew well for his principal party member as a trainer had been a Staraptor among others.

'Talk'. It said in its language.

"Name's Micky. I need to find some people." Mikita said plainly.

'Clearly.'

"How do you know?" He asked.

'You walk the path of those who you seek. You wish them and their slaves harm, not that you just want to find them.' The twisted form of English the Hoot-Hoot said, intermingling with their own language.

"That may be true, but I do not have the full story of who they are."

'They are Les Padrinos. Our Godfathers.' The Hoot-Hoot didn't lie to itself, believed what it was saying because to it was true to it.

"Uh huh." Mikita grunted in the affirmative as he shuffled away, the Hoot-Hoot following him in a slow glide, unhampered by its habitat as it had Mikita.

'Those who came from the Well. Those who gave life to this land from its place of destruction. They are gods, and they are our fathers.'

"Godfathers..." The word floated on his tongue as he punched through the bushes that seemed to keep replacing themselves in front of him. "They don't seem too fatherly."

'It is their great judgment that dictates what happens to us.'

"And you allow such judgment?"

'Some more than others.'

_"Opredelenno..." Definitely._

* * *

Native American tribes brought to the brink and driven insane by the radiation were no doubt what the Godfathers were originally. Mikita mentioned the word: Native American, to the Hoot-Hoot that followed him in the Guyanese morning. It was a word deeply rooted in the ears of the locals, human and Pokémon alike, but the meaning of the word lost meaning and what it had originally had meant was meaningless in the new world. The Hoot-Hoot didn't understand the word, when Mikita tried to explain as best he could he found his words coming up short. To describe a secluded people from before the war would've been a stressful affair, one filled with speculations and hows and whys, but what he could formulate only seemed to praise the Godfathers:

They had originally owned this land. Its fruits, its harvest, its animals had all been the Godfathers before it was torn away from them by pale-skinned people from across the sea.

"That's going to sound real familiar." Perhaps it already had as Mikita talked to himself underneath his breath. Of all the dependencies the UNG's nations had to knock, oil remained. The dependence wasn't as suicidal as it had been in the 1980's, but with the development of renewable and clean energy which was profitable to the surviving business companies of the world, the world learned to not really regard oil as an end to a means. The Middle East was still hotly contested for oil, as was the Boreal region, his ancestral homeland, but the acquisition of those resources wouldn't have herald the collapse of those society. There existed several renegade nations and bands that had come to hold over these resources; the most prominent a family going by the name of bin Laden in what was the country of Afghanistan. They made profit from selling the oil in their territory legally, but the UNG dealt an absolute when they refused to join them.

Whether or not Dreamstone was just as important to the Godfathers as the oil was to the bin Ladens was something he was going to find out.

"These Godfathers were once simple and peaceful people I presume."

'Lesser men have forced them out of that state.'

"Did the Godfathers teach you all this personally?"

'It is universally known.'

Mikita laughed to himself in the early Guyanese morning, "Well then I guess no one has let me into the cosmic perspective." The PokéNav read as six in the morning in the coming light. He had only woken up two hours ago and spent that time shuffling through the forest, though he doubted he was able to move much distance in that time.

"Do you support the Godfathers?" Mikita asked, his hand tightening around his 220.

'You find it is better to be with them then against them.'

"Well they want to kill me."

'Then you will die.'

"Then why are you not attacking me?"

'You are already coming to them no? Why should I bother?' The Hoot-Hoot cackled in its owly way before it took off into the canopy. The bird hadn't heard Mikita's frustrated growl, but it would've been preferable to the Hoot-Hoot than a bullet he was contemplating sending its way. If he hadn't asked the Hoot-Hoot that he was going the correct direction to the _Torre de Radio_ he probably would've killed the bird, it possibly relaying his location to the Godfathers, but it was hard to track anyone in a rainforest.

Not to say he gave out mercy to enemies, his former career was one of both giving mercy and withholding it when appropriate, but he had saved a bullet he intended for someone else.

* * *

He came across one patrol a few hours priors to the one he was currently stalking. The difference between this one and the one he had taken out with a few consecutive shots from his .45 was that this one had lacked a Pokémon with the heightened sense to detect him.

The first patrol had served to wake him fully up at around eight o' clock, he bumping into the Godfather and a very angry Linoone after falling through a bush that had come into his way.

The Godfather was disposed of after he placed a few rounds into his lungs, the Linoone taking one in its body before it finally stopped its biting at his arm and its neck promptly broken in an impromptu wrestling session with the much larger Mikita.

Linoone were easy to take down as Professor Oak, one of his mentors at Vermillion, had taught him inadvertently. The man didn't want his knowledge to be used for war, but knowing the exact amount of pressure to put on the Linoone's windpipe and at what points of its body would need to be held to immobilize it was actionable intel.

As with all Army recruits, and if he remembered most roaming trainers, he had his rabies shot. With the life he lived however, it wasn't going to be disease that killed him.

The Dragunov was near useless with the ever present branches and leaves, the length of the rifle much too cumbersome in that environment so his pistol was instead aimed at the lone individual that had been proceeding the same way he had.

The white dots that had been its sights aimed at the head the tribal upon his first glimpse at the near naked man, pressing into the forest with only a brown leather skirt decorated with red and blue. His finger floated off the trigger though, backing away and ghosting the tribal's movements. The ambiance of the forest hid the ex-soldier's movements, the opportunity of being led to a shared destination too great to pass up.

The prospect was familiar in that, stalking targets for days in order to be led to an encampment, something that he was sure he could do, something to occupy him for the rest of the day.


	12. Chapter 8

Mikita thought it was pretty ironic doing a mercenary's work when he was originally part of the army that stomped them out, more than once Mikita had gone toe to toe with mercenaries trying to take over warehouses or engaging in bank robberies in the burnt four corners of the world. If that was one shade of ironic, it was an entire new palette as he ripped the head of one of the Godfathers way passed ninety degrees in the darkened forest within walking distance of his destination, snapping the tribal's neck and crumpling to the ground without a sound.

The _Torre de Radio_ had actually been, big surprise to Mikita, a radio tower. Covered by the shadow of a hill, the only light from it were the smoky fires and the blotchy colors of the Godfathers that walked with or without their "children". The spiny, skeletal structure of the steel radio tower was bent, growth having settled on it. The disrepair might've been a clear sign of its disuse, but the PokéNav said otherwise when a signal bounced from the Nav to the tower and back.

It had really been a standard signal in the military sense, encoded and hidden from the air waves. Mikita thought that the fact that the tower had survived was peculiar unto itself, nothing to say that is still somewhat worked as the Nav's radio waves fizzled and ebbed on his wrist on the small display, but why it had been in use apparently was lost to him.

Ham radio sets were always great in the fact that everyone and their mothers had them, as was the consequence of the Cold War mentality: Thousands having stored such equipment in bunkers and warehouses in the event of the collapse of society. Unsurprisingly quite a few freighters of radio equipment often fell to pirates, easy to tell who had via the headsets and their above average coordination in attacks and counter-attacks. It was nothing out of the ordinary though in those situations. However what Native Americans were doing with them in a secluded part of the world was lost to Mikita as he set up observation through his Dragunov's scope.

* * *

The voice of the man on the other end of the raspy and static filled line was cold and heavy to the Godfathers, a voice unlike any they had ever heard in the years prior. A voice of a commander essentially, was what the leader of the Godfathers had heard. It hadn't challenged him or questioned his authority over his land and his people, but as Cortex Phrere listened, he knew that it would've been bad if they had.

His sense of hearing was honed, much more so than any human's should, so he knew the audio cues from the voice of a man that he had only met twice. They came in silently under the cover of night to their home, their helicopters barely making a sound aside from the woosh of the air that they made.

They all scrambled from their beds with their hundred year old AK-47s and pistols, their children in tow as they tried their best to get a grasp of what was happening in the darkness, their eyes unable to adjust in time.

Eyes were never a problem with Cortex however; he saw their military precision, their fanning out on the tarmac despite the darkness. He was never able to describe what he saw, but to be fair he saw everything that lived. He saw Aura, life forces. His vision was clouded in red and black splotches in the vague shape of the living beings that were alive almost like a thermal camera. This in itself had its advantage, but it was a tricky life Cortex had lived with his less than visual life. He never knew what true sight had been really, but he was ahead nonetheless. He saw only the vague shape of the land he had walked on, seeing life through the brush. Needless to say his prey couldn't hide and his ferocity in the hunt raised him to the top of Les Padrinos (or maybe it was that his bunk was closer to the nuclear ground zero on base than the others). With or without what he lacked or had in respect to his other brethren; his mindset was of the mindset that made him a leader by force.

Of course what he could do paled to the German that made a deal with him.

It was either make the deal or get lit up in the dark. Of course there was no reason not to take the deal; they had been running short on respectable weaponry and the Caribbean pirates had cut most ties after one of their traders was attacked by them in one of the river deltas.

"The RPGs and the Anti-Material Rifles match the combat effectiveness of several of your men Cortex." The voice was as black as water, to the point and commanding.

"Listen to me General," The no-eye'd man had said, hand angrily tight around the old radio microphone. "Not only did I lose more than thirty of my brothers and my children. You fed us with bad information."

"How so Godfather?" Hearing the translated name of his people was unusual to him, it naturally made him angry. "Our checkpoints surrounding the camp pulled out and gave full clearance, and you have already acquired the object in question."

"You didn't tell us that there was a capable fighter among them!"

"I hardly think that the Rocket Grunts had pu-" The Major General that the man had identified himself as mistook Cortex as he was cut off.

"Not the grunts. There was a SINGLE gringo. I saw who he was! He was like you! Maybe he was one of you!" He saw the world as the Lucario and the more aware psychic Pokémon had seen it when they used their powers, some people several shades of life in different, sometimes alarming and hidden colors.

"Impossible. No regulars from the Army should be here, only my men Cortex."

"I would never forget anyone who held us at gunpoint General. I am led to believe you have led us to a trap." Cortex accused as he stared out at the carbon metal box that the Dreamstone was held in. He was contemplating throwing it in the fire that had been warming his surviving men and those who manned this outpost of his. It was his only link to the outside world he planned to conquer in due time, the Major General was going to help him if he wasn't going to be a thorn in his side with the emergence of this unknown soldier.

"We have nothing to gain by getting rid of you."

* * *

Mikita glanced at the watch function of his wrist bound device. It was only an hour into the 4th and he was barely winded from spending one day stalking the tribal that had lain dead before his feet. Food really was never a problem for him, adrenaline and the thrill of the hunt fueled his body. Long days without nutrition in training had hardened his back and his stomach had turned into stone. He did thirst for revenge though.

He had taken out the patrol before he had gotten into visual range of the camp, the Dragunov, despites its magnifying scope, was near useless in the dark as he laid prone. He could've offed the tribals surrounding the fire trying to fend away the darkness and the nip of the Guyana cold, but it wasn't really the best course of action as far as he was concerned. There was a mistake the Godfathers had made when they raided the Rocket camp, and Mikita was going to make sure he didn't do the same when he raided this one: He had to be absolute, to kill every man who stole from him so that they may never again.

That kind of rule of engagement was what got him there is the first place.

In reality he was merely copying what he had experience what the Godfathers had done just days ago, the only difference being that he didn't know where the Dreamstone was, as they clearly had.

The scope glanced over the sitting tribals in an attempt to locate Dreamstone in the event it had actually ended up at THAT camp and not the handful of others. The stone was of course housed in a sheet metal box, it, as long as it was kept in the box, was safe. He felt his blood pressure hike as he saw it though. He hadn't even seen the box for more than a few minutes outside of the object's introduction from James and its taunting hold in the hands of the No-Eye'd Godfather, but it was set in stone in his mind, seeing as it was worth 400,000 to him. A Godfather had been sitting on the box.

He would've buried his head in the dirt he was laying on in disgust, which is to say he hadn't. In poor judgment, he buried a 7.62 round from the Dragunov into the Godfather sitting on it. The flash of the shot illuminated his position for only a second, but it got the point across to the Godfathers facing his position as the bullet entered the Godfather sideways and tumbled in his chest, only to blow out through his armpit and force the man to slump lifeless off the metal box.

They were less than 80 or so yards away, he being on raised hump of the land, the cover of the forest hiding him, but his general direction was very much known. One man had leapt from his sitting position and reached for the handle of the metal box, a crack in the air stopping him just short.

Undoubtedly the Dreamstone was important to the Godfathers, but unfortunately for them it was something worth risking their life over.

Each round had cut through the airs as the tribals spun and went for their weapons, the more concentrated among them diving for the box, but it was only another shooting gallery for Mikita. Priorities clicked in his head in a well-practiced routine. To anyone else who had the same thoughts and wasn't a soldier, it was all gibberish and would've given them a bad headache: Amount of enemies in his sights, the remaining rounds in his magazine, the wobble of his gun and position with each recoiling shot, the importance of each target in his view dependent on vicinity to the Dreamstone and those trying to get a view of the shooter that was him. All these thoughts fell into place, the morality of lashing death not being one of them.

The black dots and lines of the scope were trained on one man and transitioned to the next and the next as they fell. It wasn't because he wanted to, but it was only because it was a honed skill, automatically directing his body for him, his weapon guiding instead of his brain in muscle memory. There comes a certain point where doing this sort of thing relies less on a man's thoughts, and merely on a man's reactions.

The final round went down range toward one of the trainers of the group, the twirling bullet flying through the air. A Godfather trainer had been diving behind one of the wooden walls of the radio outpost as the shot rang out in its piercing bang, but the impact was as powerful as the sound it made in the forest, breaking the wooden walls and flying into the tribal behind it. A Floatzel had been with the Godfather, taking cover and exchanging fire with Mikita, shooting off shards of ice into the forest. The pieces that missed and collided with the trees around him peppered him with shattered fragments, the coldness of them like glass against his bare skin as he tried to get a bead on the moving Floatzel and manage Dreamstone at the same time.

Without thinking his hand thumbed out a handful of pills from his back of his belt, not even thinking about taking the mouthful of diazepam in that situation, the medicinal substance calming his nerves and ceasing his tremors as he held a breath after swallowing.

The Floatzel twisted its body to cover its parents going for the Dreamstone, head still shooting the occasional shard of glass in Mikita's direction, but the wide profile of its back was a target that the diazepam helped pinpoint.

The twist of the 7.62 round from the Dragunov was a kilometer per second deal, the white line of the tracer connecting barrel to the heart of the Floatzel, it collapsing.

The slide clicked back and Mikita leapt from his prone into a mad dash, fumbling with a magazine from his jean pocket and guiding it to replace the fallen magazine. The sprint pushed him past all the foliage and into the wall of one of the clearly pre-war houses, the wood feeling old and creaky as his body collided and planted against it for cover. The scope of the Dragunov was situated above the iron sights, so it had to suffice as a makeshift battle rifle as he heard the Spanish and Portuguese yelling of the natives just feet away and on the opposite side of the building he was taking cover behind. His gun leaned out of cover first, anticipating no one had been on that wall, but it was punched out of his hands and in the ambient light of the fire he saw a tribal round the corner, yanking the rifle.

It was taut on the straps that came with it, tied around Mikita's form like a lifeline, dragging the ex-soldier with it as the tribal yanked toward him. Mikita's forehead impacted the nose of the tribal as he was dragged, using the momentum of it to head-butt the tribal into a daze before fanning his 220 in a wild spray into the tribal's stomach. Releasing the Dragunov as he fell, Mikita sighted and shouldered it as he stood now in the perimeter of the small camp.

A pair of Godfathers tumbled out from their shacks, their pristine M16s in their hands. Mikita's trigger finger curled as the rounded steel iron sights fell on one of them, trigger finger curling automatically and letting a bullet fly. The hard skin of the Godfather it hit was pierced, but he took it as it cut into his shoulder, using one arm to now wield the black rifle. Return fire came, but not before Mikita lowered his own rifle and jumped from the corner of the wooden shack to the wall of another. The bullets had followed him from the wooden wall to the sand, but the trail didn't follow all the way through as Mikita once again leaned against one wall and recentered his sights in less than a second.

The tribals had tried to mimic the quicker man in his dodge, running toward him as the only cover had been the buildings that had made a half-circle opposite of them. They fired wildly, trying to cover themselves, but they didn't know how to use the weapons properly anyhow, both dropping to the sand as Dragunov spat fire. He didn't stop firing until he knew definitively they had been dead, the slide clicking back stopping him. Reflexively his left arm fanned the mag release lever, sliding a fresh magazine from his jeans in the same movement, however as he checked the top round for damage he found a round had lodged itself in his forearm. The sharp pain had only kicked in when he had become aware of it. There had been some Godfathers that had ignored him completely in the brief moment he had been occupied with his injury, running away from the camp and retreating. Thankfully none had run off with Dreamstone yet.

Mikita had bit the bullet, literally. Tearing out the lodged round, having barely missed his veins, the spurt touched his face as he spat both his blood and the skewered round onto the ground.

General panic had taken over and Mikita was trained to live in that sort of chaos, pressing on past the cabin and toward the light and the metal box that sat in front of it, quickly kneeling and pressing a hand against the bodies he thought might've still been alive, the Floatzel among them.

Everyone had seemingly run off as Mikita cleared the clearing of the outpost, rifle raised and scanning the area. It was going to be a snatch and grab, but Mikita never had the luck of having such simplistic objectives. One eye had honed in on the box as the other continued to be used looking down the rifle's sights as he neared the object, one hand reaching out and looking down on it.

Of course No-Eyes jumped in as his hand was so close to the metal box's handle.

A thump in the dirt akin to a grenade hitting the ground had made all the alerts go off in Mikita's head as his legs unarbitrarily jumped away from the sound behind him. If it was a real grenade Mikita would've lost his legs and died there, but it wasn't a frag as his vision exploded in a milky white and the fire was snuffed out beside him. Reflexively his forearm went to cover his mouth as his eyes shut tight to wave off the sudden stinging. His rifle fell from its ready position and he was jumped in that moment of his own confusion. A hand wrapped around the wrist he was holding the sniper rifle by and was funneled down roughly, the rifle falling to the ground as another hand held a knife to lunge toward Mikita's body. With his eyes shut Mikita felt the first hand and stepped back enough for the blade to miss, snagging on the sling and cutting away the Dragunov and barely touching his chest through his shirt.

Time slowed as he opened his eyes to a milky, dark, whiteness that surrounded him. He tried to breath but his lungs had a hard time following his bodily instructions within the white cloud. A man was pulling away with the knife as Mikita's left arm swung in defense, catching the tribal's right arm and hitting the side of the blade, throwing it outside his space as his knuckles caught the nip of the blade.

Mikita looked up and he saw someone who couldn't.

Where his eyes would've been was only a patch of skin, veiny and thin and grey, bald and round head smiling in the thrill of the fight and the would be kill. It was the only glimpse he got the No-Eye'd bastard before he disappeared into the dust.

"What the hell?!" Mikita was lost in the cloud as his hand rested on the grip of the zip-gun, drawn as he felt his way back in the general direction where Dreamstone had been. In truth it had probably been less than a few feet away from him, but he couldn't see past his knees in the smoke. The dark of night would've been preferable, the clogging heat wanted instead of the chocking white chalk that he was inhaling despite the tattered medical mask, but he also would've preferred to stay alive. He was blind, so as he drew the zip gun the hand of the No-Eye'd bastard came in and grasped his hand and gun, twisting his arm behind his back. Mikita screamed in the momentary pain as the flimsy construction of the zip-gun broke. His bones cracked and the same hand drew him down onto the ground on his back in a thud. Bones rattled and his teeth grinded reeling from the impact, but his training kicked in and he his legs fanned in a circular motion, the inertia twisting his body around and back onto his feet to a squat.

The breath that had been lost as he hit the ground was unable to be recovered, the air he took in not revitalizing him but making him hack. He couldn't even see in the cloud that was allowing the lead Godfather to disappear mere feet away from him. His boot came down on the barrel of his fallen Dragunov making it fly into the air and catching it mid-flight. Holding by the metal of the warm barrel it was an impromptu club. He heard bare feet shift sand to his five o'clock and he swung the rifle with all his strength in that direction. It was a glancing blow to the 6'3 Godfather, sizing the Russian up by nearly three or four inches, the wooden stock smashing into the shoulder of the Godfather. He didn't see the object hit him, but he felt it, his reaction almost instantaneous. The arm that hadn't been hit sprung to seize the stock that was hitting him.

Mikita pulled himself forward, finger flipping onto mag release and ejecting a cartridge as he pulled himself up the rifle seeing as the barrel was more or less pointed his way. Eyes stinging he felt his way up the rifle, left hand firm on it as the right swung forward in the hopes of hitting the man that was holding it on the other end.

The punch didn't even connect though, a more monstrous hit slamming Mikita's head in a downward swing, the stock of the Dragunov broke as Mikita pivoted on it. There was nothing the ex-soldier could do but take the hit, his head hazy, light, as he stumbled back and onto the sand.

He wanted to wipe the sand that had jumped onto his face but instead found the sticky mixture of blood from his nose against the gritty sand as he took off his medical mask, he accidently wiping it across his left cheek in disgust.

Before the ex-soldier could've gotten up the unloaded Dragunov he had let go of had stabbed him in his stomach, the jab relegating him to the ground as the no-eye'd tribal's boot came down on Mikita's neck. Head forced back as far as it could on the ground, he wanted to open his mouth to scream in anger but his jaw was locked by the boot.

He knew this kind of killmove well, in the rare occasions he ran out of shells for his Mossberg and that there were survivors in an active combat zone he crushed their airways with the heel of his boot, snapping them. Unlike the lieutenant though the Godfather made sure he knew he was about to die, unlocking the dust cover of his Dragunov and spreading the guts of the rifle to the winds of the milky cloud.

Death had been always too close to Mikita and so his chest tightened and he held his breath as he waited for the sharp pain to come and go in an instant. His death was never something he wanted to dwell upon or wanted to make a big deal of it. If he wanted to make a big deal about it he would've been better off as a pirate or terrorist. There was once a time where, as a younger soldier, he would've pissed his pants at the sound of gunfire hitting the dirt harmlessly feet away, but now he was only a second away from death wide-eyed and staring into the would be eyes of his killer.

His face was angry, a twisted smile of enjoyment, eyebrows squinted in concentration despite the fact he had no eyes to pair with the brows.

"Go on, now." Mikita taunted despite the situation. If it wasn't for the dryness of the white cloud that was dissipating, Mikita would've tasted his own blood. "Do it."

The tribal would've done it to, his dirty boot grinding against the ex-soldier's neck ready for the final crush, but the white cloud that was the smoke grenade wore off and the two combatants were surrounded in the camp by the Godfathers and Pokémon that Mikita hadn't killed.

"Boss!" A Spanish tinted voice yelled out from the ring around them.

"_Que?" _The Godfather over him yelled, boot still planted against the neck of the Russian.

_"Karabin está chamando chefe! Ele precisa de uma descrição do soldado". _Mikita thought his ears deceived him as the tribal talked in Portuguese.

"Karabin?" He whispered to himself despite his windpipe being crushed. Perhaps he had misheard a word in their language, but what he mistook it for had silenced all of the thoughts running through his head.

"Shut up!" No-Eye's hyper-alert hearing caught Mikita's words, his body coming down and grabbing Mikita by the dirty scrubs he was still wearing, the darkened hand replacing his foot, snagging onto the dog tags to Mikita's detriment and the Godfather's surprise. The metal chain dug into the back of his neck as it was the only thing that Mikita was being held on by. The Godfather's thumb ran over the metal tag. Mikita silently snickered in pity; No-Eyes was feeling for brail or the markings of his name because he couldn't see. There was none however. Unlike the ID tags of hundreds years of the past, which some of the divisions of the UNGA still used, his credentials were laser etched in as opposed to punched out.

If the tribal could've seen he would've known that his blood type was O and that the initials UNGA above his name and his ID number denoted his ex-, or rather as far as the Godfather was concerned current, affiliation. He wasn't able to though through his method of vision, getting fed up and instead choking the ex-soldier as he tugged on it, the chain thankfully holding strong. Though being choked backwards he wasn't particularly thrilled over the idea of losing his coin.

"You," the Godfather ordered one of his men. "Come here and read this for me."

"Right boss." The tribal hurried over leaning down trying to read the metal tag through Cortex's fingers. The Godfather's thick fingers covered his name unknowingly but all that had really mattered was the four letters standing for United Nations Government Army.

"So?!" The Godfather yelled, expecting an answer.

"He's a soldier boy." The tribal leaned in closer for a better look at the tags, his torso holsters leaning down and hanging just off of Mikita's left arm, a loaded pistol for him to grab. Mikita bided his thoughts in milliseconds, his judgment as a soldier boy having him more reckless than anything. If that wasn't his chance he didn't know what it was, his free left arm rising up and taking it.

His legs twisted and kicked up, forcing Cortex off of him, his strength having regained as they tried to read his tags. The metal pistol flew out cleanly from the leather holster, the tribal that had read his tags realizing this too late as the muzzle was pointed inward and sent two heavy pistol rounds through his ribs. Before the body could fall and trap him he pushed the pistol into the shots and forced the body to stumble off. The tribal crowd around him had been genuinely scarred of him in the first place, most running off trying to escape death by Mikita, bolstered by the now known fact he was a soldier. His knees came up and he pointed his pistol forward in between his legs, shins covering his vital areas if any shots would've come back. The Godfather disappeared once again, the sights of the Makarov he grabbed illuminated by two of the white dots pointed toward no target in particular. The 220 was drawn from its holster with his free hand.

His entirety screamed at the fact he had been wielding two hand guns at the same time, but the random firing into the crowd forcing them to run away from the camp didn't call for any real accuracy from the two pistols as he spun on his back. Those who had weapons were caught up in the escaping crowd, the constant spray from Mikita's .45 continuing after the Makarov was discarded, having clicked empty.

The sound of metal clicking and the thunking sound of shots in the air flickered like the muzzle flashes, bodies falling with each bright light from the 220. Mikita had rebounded into his element; the only thing he was aware of was his arms and the pistol he was holding. The blood from his nose dripped onto his scrubs, the liquid hopping every time he took the recoil of a shot. Even in the dissipating swarm there were those who tried to open fire on the crouched ex-soldier, now aware that he was one.

Sometimes the mentioning of the UNG Military was enough to dissuade a rebellion or a pirate uprising, they had been the last military on Earth and all of the training, experiences, and mistakes from the militaries that ended the world centuries ago were learned by the soldiers that lived today. He wasn't going to think about his brothers in arms in modesty. He was part of the Ground Forces of the UNG Army, soldiers to the point. Swift and absolute, they were the bulk of the Army. In fact the Navy and the Air Force probably were still in service because they backed the Army. There weren't many Army Ground Force soldiers, 300,000 the last time there was a proper head count, but it was quality over quantity. He was stretching the word quality quite a bit in all honesty, most of these soldiers joining the Army as society's left behinds: Ex-convicts, former pirates or raiders, rowdy teens seeking discipline, men and women at the end of the road. He knew all of the types, almost like how Pokémon were classified. As an officer he commanded those soldiers whether they liked it or not and as a medical trained one he held them all in dire moments.

A tribal finally broke through the crowd with shotgun in his hands, before he could've pumped his weapon to chamber a shell a .45 round stopped him in his place, the round cleanly going through his lung and exiting, he tumbling down as if he had been whacked in the chest.

The shotgun fell unused next to the fallen's body, and Mikita stepped to it in one fast stride.

Medically trained officers were rare, probably because officers were not allowed to be combat medics as he was. However no one was stopping him. One his teachers in the Vermillion Academy was a Professor named Samuel Oak who hailed from Hoenn. Asides from the native regional connection (both hailing from Hoenn), he favored Mikita the trainer turned officer, and so he let him take the medical course despite the regulations. Despite the fact it broke code; the brass didn't deny the addition of Mikita to the ranks given his extended skillset.

Time slowed enough that he swiveled his head to get a hand on the situation, frantically scanning for the metal box. It was a crude hopefulness that it had been left behind, however he only confirmed the futility as he saw the square imprint next to the now snuffed fire devoid of his objective. He quickly swore in his mind, his anger otherwise being focused through his gun.

The tribal had taken one shot to his larger lung and was promptly coughing up blood. It would've been cruel to leave him to suffer so Mikita didn't hesitate to let another bang ring out, the bullet striking the head of the tribal in a mercy kill. Mikita didn't look, his eyesight more concentrated on the Ithaca shotgun that the now dead tribal had dropped.

He scooped it up by its handle, shotguns more familiar to him than rifles or pistols; the weight of the magazine tube familiar to him enough to know that it was at least half way topped. The wood was worn away and the metal scratched, the stock tally'd with what was undoubtedly kills.

A snarling growl was heard at his feet and he twirled in its direction, standing up and shotgun pointing down at the source. A Mightyena had just about pounced him, but he turned and stared it down as his shotgun waved off and intimidated the last of the tribals that had yet run away from the outpost. Among things he learned, Pokémon such as Mightyena or Ursuring could've been non-lethally taken down or dissuaded from hostilities. As simple as it was to just shoot the wolf, his throat had been white phosphorus just waiting to be released. There was no use holding back.

_"VY KHOTITE POPROBOVAT!?" _Russian slipped his tongue, the foreign language causing the Mightyena to flinch and hind legs to step back a bit. Mikita resaid it in English: "YOU WANT TO TRY IT!?" Coaxing the Mightyena to do something that would've ended up with its snout disfigured.

He stared into the Mightyena's eyes, his silver irises cutting through the wolf with steel like coldness. His boot stomped in front of it, sending sand flying as he encroached on the wolf's space.

"YOU CAN'T KILL ME!" The final tribals had run away from the ex-soldier, scared to death over the man that was way beyond their league. Only the wolf had remained, only because it was petrified. Mikita's boot went up once again, this time only following through and kicking the Mightyena feet away from him, sending it limping away in shrill yelps of pain. It stared back at Mikita, only to finally prance away at the sound of an ear shattering boom.

"GET OUT!" Mikita yelled at the Mightyena he stared down, his shotgun pointed up and having delivered a warning shot in the air. The boom seemed to have welcomed in the silence bar Mikita's heavy pants as the adrenaline subsided.

* * *

Mikita spent the better part of the last hour angrily destroying the wooden camp while swearing in his Russian, disgusted at how they had been able to get away with the Dreamstone. Sure, he had his failures, all soldiers had some, but he disappointed himself immensely then and there. He set fire to the barracks of the outpost as well as the sheds and shacks that had made it up, burning the outpost down bar for the stone building that the Soviets had built hundreds of years before. The bodies of the dead were tossed into the pyre to burn, the flame keeping away any counter-attacks any of them might risk.

"Not all men can do this." Mikita thought aloud, his breath tired, gazing up at the red fire that stunk of flesh. He noticed he didn't flare his nose to the well familiar smell. This was inhuman, how easy it was to kill to him. His conscience never talked to him anymore regarding the act, perhaps it had given up in pacifistic reasoning and instead let more useful thoughts filter through into his actions such as appropriate shot placement or whether or not a patient required amputation. Then again he didn't want to think about what he had done to these sixty something people he cut down in the last few days alone, even though they did wrong him. He thought if he was better off as an actual international doctor, but the thought soured as he shot out the lock of the structure that had been connected to the radio tower.

"Getting god damned soft." He muttered, thinking that it didn't matter if he felt bad about what he did or not. He was better off not caring if anything he thought, remembering it was not the first time he had this type of moral conflict with himself.

His eyes adjusted to the increased darkness of the unlit radio building, his gaze falling upon the wall decorated with a sentence in a foreign language Mikita knew by heart:

"_Верность партии - Верность Родине"_

"Loyalty." Mikita whispered a part of the sentence that had been obviously the motto of the Russian Committee for State Security, otherwise known as the KGB. Suppressing the need for his mind to enter yet another moral conflict with himself, he wandered by the radio sets that had been obviously been there, following the static buzz of the radio that had obviously been dropped mid-conversation.

As expected it had been an old ham radio set, Spanish words scribbled over the Cyrillic for ease of use. Using a radio was basic training in the officer's course in Vermillion, he comfortably laying a plastic headphone to his ear in curiosity, not sure what he would hear. He cycled through the open channels with the plastic knob, idly waiting until he got bored of the scanning.

How many times had he actually radioed into command to update a mission? Those missions, even long ones, were mostly independent fares. Command didn't need to know everything. In his experience it was ends through means when it came to combat operations. Anything that command didn't know was something they didn't need to…..at least when it came to regular raids and not the major news making campaigns or deployments.

He dug into his mind, pulling out the authorization code for UNGA personnel over open channels. "Alpha-Bravo-Dix-Deuce." He half-heartedly said into the transceiver, releasing the switch.

"Roger Renegade One-Lima, we lost you there for a second, what's the situation?" The ex-soldier didn't know what come over him as a radio operator answered, his seat kicking back as if the radio was a threat and the shotgun drawn and pumped in that second, unloading a string of buckshot into the machinery. The sparks from the mini-explosion had flown out and touched his hardened skin, but it had barely hurt him as he panted in surprise and horror.

* * *

A/N: Read and review. I've also added one more entry in the Q&A section.


	13. Chapter 9

Mikita honestly wished he kept some of the moonshine from the distillery he butchered two nights ago, because he needed some as he woke up, clutching his shotgun in the stone shack that had been built by his warring ancestors. He couldn't get much sleep, awaking to the caws of the early Chatot and Starly and the smell of ashes and the burnt bones and looking up at a degrading stone ceiling of the Soviet outpost.

It didn't take much guess work to know what this post had been here for. The Cold War called for such espionage, especially since South America was a hotspot for communistic revolutions that the Soviet Union could've profited from. This outpost had sat alone in Guyana, grabbing American radio transmissions under their noses while remaining hidden by the forest. What happened to its occupants was up to discussion, having remained hidden through the Third World War; maybe the staff of this radio outpost had abandoned their duties and ran away as they heard the world explode from their radios. Or maybe, just maybe, that they had been loyal as the KGB had taught them to be, and held their positions until the jungle killed them.

In the Army he'd been used to waking up to either the musky smell of his barracks or the sterile smell of the busy medical tent he had passed out in. The cold stone floor of the Soviet building was bearable; it was more of the psychological situation that was developing in his mind as opposed to the sleeping conditions.

_"Archer, be diligent with your talks with the UNGA from now on."_ He remembered his status update to his Rocket handler, a distinct calmness in his tone contrasted the conversation from the ones previous. He knew that Rocket would've been talking with the Army, seeing as the checkpoints had either been overrun or failed. He knew the corporate entities, any way they could undermine the government they could, especially since several of Rocket's men had died because of their deficiencies.

_"May I inquire why Lieutenant?" _The junior executive asked, his curiosity pure because he had been the one dealing with the UNGA while two other executives: Petrel and Proton, had been addressing the government as a whole at a Unovan conference.

_ "I heard…" _Mikita trailed off as he looked at the destroyed radio set, not wanting to believe what he had learned from it. He still didn't believe it in all honesty, pushing the thought away and instead making up some other explanation that made him sleep easier during the night._ "I think that there might be some UNGA rouges like me out here, helping these Indians out. I don't know if they might be feeding people outside Guyana info…" _He had half assed an explanation, unsure of what he was saying.

The exact amount of discharged soldiers like him was unclear, to both those still in duty and to the public knowledge. It was either a number too insignificant to even record or it had been too much for knowledge to be available without a large outcry. Those discharged usually kept away from society as a whole Mikita thought, for if there had been a big number, there must've been some effort to rally support for them. There hadn't been however, and probably one of the reasons why he had been forsaken into taking the job in Guyana's forest. The excuse was enough for Archer, he merely 'ordering' the lieutenant to go on onward until he found the Dreamstone. He didn't want to mention how close he had come the night before to the objective, and he dropped the line.

Archer was dedicated as far as officers were. Compared to him he actually acted like one, or rather the one Mikita thought most officers should've been. 2nd lieutenants like him commanded infantry squads, keeping him close to the front and not in some cold tents established as forward operating bases. If he wanted, he might've been a captain or a major, but he declined the promotions and the upper brass had happily agreed.

His stomach growled as he woke up, using the Ithaca hunting shotgun as a walking stick as he planted himself up against the inside wall of the stone listening shack, shotgun coming up and scanning the empty and burnt out camp. Granted he didn't complain about nutrition in the fronts he attended, even as most doctors would do (for soldiers had been fully expected to suck their teeth and deal with it), combat heavy situations did drain a lot of people.

Smacking his dry lips, Mikita remembered wistfully of the last restaurant he had actually properly gone to: A Lilycove buffet.

'It was supposed to be the other way around.' Mikita sourly remembered, his date having paid the bill instead of him. There had only been one childhood friend Mikita had, for Fortree was often devoid of parents that thought it be a good idea to raise their children in tree houses. A granddaughter of a retired flying type gym leader had naturally fallen in with Mikita when the adults had to go do things five year olds couldn't.

The birds flew out as Mikita emerged into the Guyana sun, the rainforest greeting him with its natural beauty. Like grandmother like daughter, she had been predominantly a flying type trainer, bird training being her specialty. In a way, he had fallen in that line as well, her grandmother giving him a new born Starly to train because, he blushed at the fact, her granddaughter thought of him in a very high regard.

There were many things he owed to her, among them his adopted name: Micky.

He wiped the thought of her away though despite how he longed for amiable company. Pleasant as it was he didn't want to put her next to the thoughts of the situation he was currently in.

His left shoulder had been dislocated during the tussle with No-Eye's, his body just now regaining feeling as the small concussion wore off after a night of sleep. With a sharp push upward and inward, he pulled the bone in with an unhealthy cracking sound, Mikita stifling a screams as he collapsed onto the ground once again.

The diagnosis wasn't too bad. He took hits in the chest yet he didn't notice until he slumped down and observed his own body. The small Kevlar vest had indents, underneath that was his bruised flesh, but he was alive for the time being. His right hand had been bent a wrong way, the pinky finger skewed, fixed with an ungodly and painfully slow re-straightening. Bones were cracked backed into place, bandages applied, biofoam spread out and filling in the knicks from bullets and sharp branches. With each fix to his body in the unusually comfortable rainforest heat, his vision had gotten hazy, the pain of getting rid of the damage done to him sharp and momentary. There are things you can never get used to Mikita had known as he applies alcohol and picks out a piece of wooden shrapnel that had caught in his thigh, one of them is pain.

Soldiers get stripped down, made bare, told to let go of the luggage on their backs and take the world head on. The only thing that was ever supposed to get in their way was pain, and that was remedied by the medics like Mikita.

Physical pain can go away though with ample use of medicine and treatment though, it's the emotional trauma that kills long time soldiers.

'Why am I here again?' He thought as he wrapped another bandage around forearm, the dirt trapped under it grinding against his skin. The pain he couldn't heal was in his mind, and it hadn't been the punch No-Eyes had delivered last night.

"UNGA." Mikita answered himself aloud. They cast him away from his service and duty after carrying them out to the extreme. Why? Because a certain government couldn't stand the thought of violence being ended by extreme violence. It was a case of being the right man at the right place, but in the wrong time.

* * *

His former service was heavy in his mind; going over the phonetic language the radio operator had answered him in last night even as he navigated away from the Soviet outpost and into the thick brush once again, no medical mask blocking the heavy mist and musk from tasting the region's air in its feral, natural state.

'Renegade' In the Army, they give names to divisions and squads; one word titles easy to remember. His own platoon was very punctually called Delta, while others were named Beast, Galm, Scarface, Mobius, Antares, etcetera etc. He had never heard of Renegade before though. It wasn't the name that scared him though, nor was it the fact that his UNGA authorization code had been picked up by someone clearly in the region who understood it, but it was the fact that UNGA protocol had been used there, the Renegade title obviously bestowed upon the Godfathers.

'What is going on here?' The simple question in his mind seemed to not even be enough to fully cover the entire situation. Perhaps it had been in all actuality a very trivially easy question, but he was- had been a soldier, soldiers do not ask questions.

_Recovered cat specimen from before the war preserved in a new strain of evolution stone recovered by the final word on Pokémon related business stolen by mad native Americans that are using UNGA grade weapons and communications techniques._

The summery of the situation was incomplete to him somehow, a final puzzle piece eluding him as he found himself walking a messy dirty path.

"While also being tracked down by an ex-officer of the UNGA." He snickered. His chest pivoted up and down in the chuckle, but the smile was wiped off his face as the scar made by a knife wound of battles passed had touched the cold of the Kevlar vest, being amplified by the new injuries covering his arms and sides of his lower body. He threw his old pack into the pyre he had burned out, better off with a bag that had appeared to have been a minimalist mountain pack that hugged his back more slimly. He had pried off the bag from one of the bodies of one of the tribals he had killed with the broken now broken Dragunov, stuffing the remaining medical supplies into it. If he kept getting injured like he had he would've run out of his supply in three days, his ammo not much better: Three magazines for the 220 and a fistful of shells for the Ithaca. Each one was going to count if it was up to him however, if they ran out, he would simply just pick up one from the fallen like the Mandibuzz he had been described as.

It dawned on him that he had actually been fighting a one man war, the stuff of war stories and battlefield legends. It was far too easy really; his training and experiences done him well in the forest alone, shots far more accurate than the tribals even with their new weapons, body movements and flow more swift and effective.

'Left arm doesn't feel like that though.' The bullet had caught itself in his skin, the little squirt of biofoam that covered it up enough for him after he had grabbed it by his teeth and spat it out. He would live, but it had numbed out the feeling in his left arm. He had taken far worse though.

"Is that something to be proud of you crazy Russian?" He asked himself. He already knew the answer though.

* * *

The map was tucked into the heel of his boot, it being taken out and held to the sun as he found himself in front of a steel building. If what he was reading was right he had ended up in western Guyana by following the particular path that had been the most torn up by scurrying feet.

"Aircraft hangar?" He asked himself as his vision darted back and forth, trying to point out some faded emblem of the USAF, but to no avail. It hadn't really mattered; it was a large steel building with its roof still intact. That detail alone had made the structure valuable in the rain forest. Even the shacks and sheds back in the coastal town hadn't been at all suited for the environment, made out of wood and cloth.

"Warehouse probably." A handful of them dotted the map, apparently serving as safe houses or store houses judging by the plus symbol that had adorned the symbols on the map as if they marked a beneficiary place.

There had been constructed obviously, a large area around the warehouse cleared and level by some long-gone construction firm hired by the U.S Government. Relishing in the newly found openness wasn't on his mind though, Mikita immediately running up to the wall of the warehouse as he left the brush. Combat had nailed into his head to plant himself up against any walls that would've provided cover, however the Godfathers had been an exception given the fact they couldn't shoot worth a damn.

Unsurprisingly the Godfathers who had given up shooting him all together at the radio outpost had run, their tracks in the dirt and sand leading Mikita to that warehouse. It was times like those that Mikita had wished he actually carried his officer's sword with him. The object was his regardless if he had been in the service or not, even in his particular situation, but it was peculiar still that this formality of the swords had actual come to be used on the battlefield actively as Pokémon often forced troopers into close quarters. Master swordsman or not, he would've liked cutting through the brush his blade if not using it to deflect the knives or machetes of the tribals.

There had been many things that had changed in military protocol in the three hundred years since the bombs fell, that alone Mikita could tell by just walking into the warehouse and instinctively ducking behind one of the heavy duty crates that had been too hard to move by the Godfathers. The arms and the supplies that kept the Army moving were often procured onsite or held in private warehouses owned by civilians as opposed to how the Americans did it: Large masses of everything made at once and spread out throughout the world in caches just waiting to be cracked open.

"Eight tangos." He counted the men licking their wounds in the light of the sun roof. He could've taken eight men alone, especially ones that had been injured, but the air had smelt like it had been burnt and he knew what that had meant.

"Charizard." His observation by the smell of the air was confirmed by the orange slump of the dragon tucked at the corner of the group, obviously resting.

The Hoot-Hoot he had encountered in the days before were among the more friendly Pokémon capable of flight that had sought him to be dead by either their master's hand or their own. The massive flaps in the air by Flygon and Charizard hugging the canopy had sprung Mikita into hiding in the dirt, they obviously sweeping the area, looking for him and trying to cover their master's or "fathers" path.

It would've been stupid to engage them in the forest, but here in confined space was another matter.

"I don't have to kill you…." Mikita had said, catching his wistfulness in it. He could've bypassed the area anyway, continued onto Tactical Air Force Base Wellington and save what ammo he had for No-Eyes. "But my handler is damned useless." Every time Archer had called in or he had called Archer during his trek, the junior executive used words that covered how little he knew. Not the total number of Godfathers, the exact amount of compensation he was given, what had been REALLY important about Dreamstone had been not told to the ex-lieutenant. He was the one who liked intel with his intel, regardless of how he got it.

The Ithaca had been loaded with slugs, his aim usually impeccable, but he routinely double checked his weapons in the wet environment out of fear of jamming.

_ 'clunk'_ A shell had caught in the tube as he pumped the round, the sound echoing throughout the warehouse because of the acoustics of the wide and mostly clear building.

"Shitshitshit." Mikita swore in his luck, head ducked down into the shadows. The damage had already been done though, a scrap metal ball being thrown in Mikita's general direction behind the heavy crates.

He heard the ticking of the jury-rigged cooking timer connected to the object.

"Grenade!" He yelled as if warning the non-existent squad members he had with him. Scrambling, his feet didn't seem to want to agree with his mind and he tumbled just behind another set of sage army crates. The grenade wasn't at all powerful, the explosion only rivaling a gunshot in sound, but it was the shrapnel that had really done people in. His hand had caught a rusty nail that had been packed into the grenade as he tried to cover his face, the full length of it lodged into his hand as the tribals started limping toward him with the intent to kill.

The pain was intense as it was wedged into his trigger hand, his first reaction to flail it as it felt like it had caught fire. They had been getting closer, the footsteps getting louder and louder with him unable to even pull the trigger with the shred of metal in his hand. His teeth gritted against each other, his only option to yank the nail out.

_"Chyort!"_ The head was grasped with his left hand as his shotgun had monetarily dropped at his side, his mind blanking before he ripped it out. The human hand was by far the most sensitive part of the body, he didn't need to be a medic to know that as the nail unhooked itself from his hand and was freed.

He yelled, eyes watering, but the pain had funneled into rage as the painful scream went on. The most able of the wounded Godfathers had rounded the corner in that instant, taken off guard by the unhealthy scream.

Mikita's left hand came up in a swing, bloodied nail still in hand as he stabbed the Godfather in the neck again and again, his now bleeding right hand grabbing the Ithaca. Each stab had opened up a new gash in the Godfather's neck, the pistol the tribal had in his hand aimlessly firing off away from Mikita as he scrambled onto the ground. The nail was left in his neck as Mikita's bloodied hands gripped his shotgun and blunted the dead man to the concrete with the chestnut stock stained red by his own grip, the wet war paint on the man's neck mixing brown with the crimson.

Poking the shotgun out from the corner of the crate he sent one .50 caliber slug down range as his eyes acquired a target, his mind telling his hands to shift ever so slightly to the right as the ghost ring sight of the Ithaca lined up with the torso of an approaching tribal. The round shattered the collarbone of the lucky Godfather it had hit, causing the group to scramble to cover as a chunk of the man's torso was torn out and thrown onto the ground. The slide had almost slipped because of the blood that coated his hand, but it followed through as he chambered another slug in exchange for the spent hot cartridge. Return fire came as he ducked down, barely shifting the steadfast heavy crate that had been the choice cover in that warehouse.

As it turned out only three tribals remaining that had been at all fit to fight the intruder, Mikita having already downed two, Charizard withholding.

Another burst was stopped in its track by a pre-emptive boom from Mikita, the shot knicking the cover the Godfather had taken cover behind as the rest causing the plastic to shatter.

Mikita left his bloody print as he hopped over the plastic box, transition to another piece of cover in an attempt to keep the Godfathers guessing. The other two had been stacked behind wooden boxes just opposite of Mikita. They hesitated as the ex-soldier jumped into their sights from his cover, their guns rising but their trigger fingers hesitating in the heat of the moment. Unfortunately for them the ex-soldier had grown past this tendency, shotgun racked and aimed down. The slug flew and hit the Godfather dead center no more than a few yards away, the full kinetic force blowing out his spine as another shell was pumped in. The tribal's AK had manically sprayed upward toward Mikita, the hardened man not even acknowledging how close the 7.62 rounds had come to plastering the right side of his chest. The metallic boom from the hunting shotgun had ended the tribal effectively, the last shell being spent.

"Next!" The flinching tribal that Mikita first fired at had recovered, the barrel of his Uzi submachine gun coming up once again as Mikita closed the corner, transitioning to pistol from his spent shotgun. They were at arm's length as the Uzi went off, the fire from its muzzle singing the blood on Mikita's arm as he deflected the gun away from him, bullets impacting the roof of the warehouse, forcing him to drop his 220. Each shot's treble had nearly deafened him despite how familiar the sound was to him. The fact they had been point blank meant that each shot had nearly burst his ear drums, let alone his cranium.

The tribal's right knee went up to break the hold Mikita had on the Uzi. The kneecap hitting his locked hands and forcing them off the tribal, but not before forcing the Uzi onto the ground and kicked away. The leather hair band holding the Spaniard's brown locks came free in the tussle, blinding him momentarily. The opportunity was enough for Mikita to quickly swipe up his pistol and pump a handful of rounds into the tribal's chest. However he stood as if no rounds had made contact.

"Kevlar?!" Mikita exclaimed, wearing the same type of bulletproof protection. Each shot from the .45 had resulted in smoky puffs from his chest, the vest disguised under another cowboy vest, but no blood as the tribal's hair was swept back and he continued his assault. The last rounds in the magazine in the SIG were repositioned, fire messily placed at the tribal's feet in the intent of disabling him. The blood made his aim slippery however, the relentless recoil making him fumble with his aim. The pistol was thrown in the same direction as the Uzi as he was tackled onto the hard concrete floor.

The Charizard had finally started to move as it was awoken by the brief firefight, struggling to find purchase for its wings to get air underneath them, buying Mikita more time as the Godfather clawed at his face.

Mikita ended up on the bottom, the Godfather trying to use his finger to gouge out his eye with his thumbs. His hair fell down though, a quick yank of the greasy brown locks reversing the situation.

The Godfather's throat was pounded by his bloodied hands, forcing the air out of his lungs as a grip around them formed. Mikita was strangling him with one hand, the other slamming the man's head into the floor as if to end him faster palm blocking his eyes and grasping the upper half of his head. His air ways had been blocked but it hadn't been the air deprivation that killed him, blood pooling at the back of his head and coating his hair meant that his skull had broken first, finger nails having dug into his skin.

Air shifted and gushed in the confines of the warehouse, ushering Mikita to wobble back onto his feet, careful to remember to pick up his shotgun. The remaining Landwalkers had all been wounded, tending their wounds and unable to fight save order the Charizard who gave up on flight and instead walked on its two legs. The wings flapped in preparation for combat, orange lizard head held up high as if clearing its throat in a succession of fiery roars.

_"Chyort."_ It had been clearing its throat for the one thing that Charizards were known to do: Breath fire. Mikita had hardly been a few dozen of yards from the center of the warehouse where the skylight had shone and the Godfathers and the Charizard, but distance wasn't an issue when it came too fire breathing. With a large inhale from the Charizard Mikita's feet dashed leftward as fast they could, dropping shotgun shells as he loaded them into the Ithaca. The fallen shells were still in the air when the loom of fire directed Mikita's way was fired, manually firing off the shells. The heat hadn't hit him, but he felt as if the back of his body had nearly been singed. Head sweeping the Godfather Charizard fanned the fire throughout the stone and plastic warehouse, melting crates and blackening stone as Mikita dashed away from the stream. The fire stream stopped as the Charizard ran out of breath, repositioning its body and head for another go. In the lull of the hellfire Mikita had stopped just momentarily and aimed his shotgun.

The Godfathers had been cheering on their child as if it had been a ball game in lower Castelia, of course Mikita wasn't going to be catching balls as opposed to catching fire. The wooden pump was sent all the way back, the gun held sideways as Mikita observed the red shell cleanly go into the chamber, a quick metallic snap closing it. Shotgun held out, almost as if he was going to launch himself at the Charizard, one messily aimed shot was sent downward, Mikita spitting his own flame, the muzzle flash blinding his vision momentarily.

He heard the bells as he fired, having neglected to have brought any ear protection, though it was the least of his concerns or worries as his eyes readjusted and sought out if he had good effect on target. A hole had been punched in the beige wing of the Charizard, in its rage not noticing it even as the blood flowed. Hacking up an orange fireball, Mikita's feet went right, feeling the embers of the previous fire stream coat the ground through his boots. He closed the distance in his reactions, cutting across as he dodged fireballs.

A Charizard's fire breathing capacity was gauged by the amount of air it could hold in its lungs and the amount of energy it had been storing. It hadn't been sleeping for the mere enjoyment Mikita realized, but rather to recharge as it hacked out fireballs, thinning out with each. Sidestepping each had been trivially easy, like dodging snowballs during the winter of Hoenn but this time with deathly consequences, closing the distance yielding the same result: a bigger target.

'Neck.' His subconscious told himself, bringing the shotgun up again as they had come to be mere feet apart. Hitting the neck would've stopped the fire breathing problem entirely, punching through its airway stopping this battle in short order with a severed artery he would surely hit

Another booming round was sent upward, the Charizard's wings extending up and out as the claws were ready to swipe. The .50 caliber slug hit its target, point blank it was impossible to miss. A chunk of its throat had been punched out, the claw falling down on Mikita as the rest of its body quivered in pain. Death from a neck hit usually took more than a few seconds as the blood drained, giving ample time for the claw to come down.

He tried to block the orange claw with his left, but he only ended up offering it to the Charizard. It was encircled by its three claws, grasping it, drawing blood, but its grip went no further as Mikita's eyes was not on his arm, but rather looking back into the eyes of the dragon.

His shotgun hung idle in his right arm, legs squared in his well-practiced shooting stance supporting his upper body. The hot breath of the Charizard ran from its nose as the blatant hole in its neck leaked.

Pokémon had developed some sort of nobleness in nature, years of use in battle from generation to generation made them know when to either accept defeat or die trying. Regulation Pokémon battles often went on until the last Pokémon on a trainer's team had spent all of its strength and its momentary will to battle, of course on the battlefield they fought until they had been dead or killed enough men. Occasionally Mikita, during his days as a trainer, had met a few other trainers who pushed their Pokémon above and beyond and pass their own safety. There were many instances he could label as his first kill, one of those occasions very early on:

He remembered the words, experiences such as that are not easily forgotten:

"_Foulke!" He shouted out to his then Staravia with a sweep of his arm. "Take Down!" He yelled the widely accepted name of the maneuver and attack out, his Staravia complying gladly. The trainer he was fighting in the middle of Hearthome city was intent on going to the end, though his loyal Pokémon unfortunately had to obey. Foulke (he named his first Pokémon after an ace pilot that fought during the Third World War.) had used his body to slam into the Umbreon. The cracks of the Umbreon's bones were heard throughout the entire plaza and the crowd gasped in horror. The authorities came and the Pokécenter staff carried the body off to the center's cremator. The trainer responsible was charged by the skin of the law's teeth because the death had happened in a public domain, but it wasn't Mikita that was charged. That sort of thing happened more often than Mikita was comfortable thinking about. Foulke and he saw the Umbreon's eyes glass over as the attack was brought and they were changed._

The golden eyes of the Charizard had glassed over in the same manner, hands locking up in a grip around Mikita's left arm as the six foot dragon fell to the ground. It essentially anchored him to the ground, Mikita unfortunate enough to have not pumped his shotgun with his now ensnared hand. The tribals didn't know that however, lying on the conspicuously new medical stretchers placed in the sun light as they saw their child fall.

"Stay right there!" He ordered, tugging on his left arm to be free from the dead Charizard's grip. The shotgun wasn't at all useful in that situation but he waved it with one hand anyway. It wasn't hard for people even as blunt as the Godfathers to peer through. All of them but one, for he had taken a few of Mikita's shots to the leg and was immobilize, had hobbled over, wounds in their chests or guts as they came with baseball bats and wooden clubs, war paint smudged from wear and tear.

"I swear to fucking god. _Pizda" _He had called them cunts in his native tongue, one by one they came to the anchored ex-soldier. He'd been in sillier situations admittedly; however it was preferable to keep having them as opposed to not being able to keep having them.

He'd been resorted to using his gun as a club more than he should have, sparring with the first tribal as he brought his own club down. Handicapped as they both were, Mikita still had the upper hand, knocking away one club and then promptly using the walnut stock to knock the man unconscious with a skull tap. Each yank scarred his left forearm even more as it trapped him, the white nails dragging across his arm tightly. The 2nd man had come with what was basically a staff, outreaching Mikita. He had been shot in his upper body he began to feel, his maneuvers strained and painful. The blunt staff had thrusted forward, Mikita's groin taking the full impact and dropping his shotgun. The bald tribal glanced at the firearm, thnking of seizing it for himself, but it was all he had thought about as his hands remained tight around the staff in Mikita's groin. Mikita's body moved slightly, enough to catch the staff in his armpit and pull it and its handler forward. A balled fist crushed the tribal's nose, the skull cracking.

'Body is still fresh, nerves should still respond.' He trapped the Ithaca safely underneath his boot as he went for his knife, jabbing into the Charizard's wrist in hope that it would've freed him. The claw grasped him harder for a second, marking his skin, before untightening and setting Mikita free.

The last remaining was a towering man, buzzcut head and skin like a hide.

He had skinned a Feraligator under the ruse of extracting some flesh for testing in the field hospital; it was one of the most profitable things he had ever taken from the battlefield as a souvenir. With that experience he knew he would have no problem with his combat knife piercing the skin of this tribal. One eye had apparently been out of action with the hulking tribal.

'Keep on his blind side.' Knife fighting he was trained in to some extent, of course he knew how to slice as per his medical education. The technical term was CQC, but he couldn't be assed to remember the complete basics of it at the moment. His opponent was armed with a plastic baton, swinging it in Mikita's direction as he got within reach. The knife was a strong example, a tantō from Japanese tradition. The black foot long blade was something he bought second hand from a fish market as he was walking out of the Silph building after the meeting. Tantōs were the choice that many Japanese business men had used in the old age to commit suicide at the foot of Mt Fuji. Along those lines the tantō was sold to Mikita for cheap, the fish salesman probably thinking he was going to do himself in for he had been wearing a suit and walking out of the Silph building. The blade was sharp even after its usage against Magikarp, sharp enough to wedge itself in the wooden baton as it swung down. Mikita parried the blow.

He pushed the baton up and away from him, recoiling the tribal back after the block. The Godfather's arms were forced above his head; Mikita's seizing the opportunity and coming back down with the knife. One of the tribal's hands was quick enough to come down and try to shield his face, but skin wasn't a fair protection against cold steel.

The knife caught in the bone of his left arm with a resounding squish. Mikita cut through the vain as he sliced out, the pain too much for the larger tribal as his remaining hand swung in his direction having dropped the baton. His body jerked forward and Mikita's body jerked back, his momentum too much as he missed the punch, bending down below Mikita's waist.

_"Na kaleni, suka." On your knees bitch. _Mikita had said the taunt in Russian as he came forward, plunging the knife into the back of the man's neck. Twisting it and forcing the body down.

* * *

The knife slid out and was whipped, most of the blood coming off the blade as it was holstered in his boot. Of the combatants only two remained, one unconscious, the other scared of his wits and unable to move.

"I swear to…." He didn't want to say god, for they were gods themselves essentially. Of course Mikita was a godless person, especially after all he'd seen, but he was knowledgeable over the remaining religions of the world. Apocalyptic wars have the tendencies to spawn their own amount of prophets. Mikita remembered vague accounts of one of the very first conflict the UNGA had to step into after the Great War: Nearly a hundred years before his father's time the UNGA went to war in what was originally Tokyo to quell several rebellions against the UNGA at the same time, as all those prophets congregated where they would make the most noise. Cults came and went, which was usual for society, but cults of varying religions within a 2000 square kilometer area led to predictable results. It was a jihad, crusade, and a holocaust all at once.

In the end Tokyo had to be built up after a series of Voltorb bombings and a four way urban war that lasted a month.

"It's in my training to do this Godfather." His calm tone bounced around the warehouse as he dragged the body of the unconscious Godfather back, not knowing if he was referring to taking on the group plus a Charizard with a varying degree of aplomb or killing religious terrorist. The Godfather's eyes were wide behind his black eye paint, unable to move, viewing the devil himself as he hoisted his unconscious comrade into one of the stretchers and tied the straps that came with it to secure him tightly. These medical stretchers came with such straps to secure less than calm patients and in sparse occasions, restrain prisoners as Mikita was doing now.

He felt a blunt thud hit the back of his Kevlar vest, easily ignorable to him as he knew what the tribal behind him was throwing rocks at him.

His shotgun had come with him, now put forward and toward the remaining tribal as he finally pumped his shotgun.

"Lay down, arms at your sides_. Comprende_?" The tribal did comprehend his unaltered accent, fearful of the man and not the gun he wielded. He was there when the black clad men arrived in their helicopters over their homes, and he was reminded how much this one had been similar to them.

* * *

A/N: On the checklist: Reveal more of Mikita's character faster. I have a dozen plus flashbacks of Mikita's days in the UNGA to be placed into chapters as time goes on, but once a week every hundred views is a tad slow, at least when I'm talking. I have 16+ chapters ready for publishing plus those flashbacks and events, but I have a schedule and the integrity to keep it. Unless of course you guys say otherwise.

Read and review, perhaps you'll get to Apollo faster.


	14. Chapter 10

One of the subtopics Mikita had extensively studied during his medical course in the academy was torture. Lieutenant Surge, a former UNGA officer, had headed the class as per his shock torture methods.

He passed that class with flying colors as Archer was about to observe. Of course his observation was limited to audio from his PokéNav. Mikita had taken off the watch and set it up in-between his two prisoners on a wooden table he had found. The two stretchers they were bound to had been set up straight against the wall, the bands running across them and binding them to the stretchers (which had been UNGA equipment to his dismay). There was a wooden stool for Mikita in front of the two trapped tribals, which he sat on as he talked with Archer, also tightening some bandages and downing a pain pill.

"Yes." Mikita stressed as he cut a bandage with his blade. "This is going to be as beneficial to you Archer as it will be to me." Archer had been desperately trying to talk himself out of the session. Though information was information and Archer needed all he could. There was more than that though, Mikita thinking it as breaking in some brutality to the painfully new executive. He had lightened up despite the time difference that caused him to lose much sleep, probably because, unbeknownst to Mikita who would've actually welcomed the news, that his personal unit was resting off of Cuba in a Devon oil rig.

"You don't seem like the squeamish type." Mikita had chided Archer, biting into a pomegranate. The sound his bite made had made Archer flinch, even on the other side of the world, but he kept his steely composure and talked into the cellphone, gazing out from the view of his personal office to the same Saffron City view he had grown used to.

"Unlike you, I've made my life doing civilized things lieutenant."

"What's more civilized and noble than doing what others cannot Archie?" He'd been called lieutenant by Archer more than enough times for him to start using a skewed version of Archer. "Is that your actual god damn name or just some silly call sign?"

"Why do you care?" Archer coldly replied.

"Because, I'd like to get to know you." Mikita spat out quickly, he and Archer unsure if it was a sarcastic statement or not. There wasn't enough willpower for Archer to waste on holding back something as trivial as his name, so he indulged the lieutenant.

"John... Archer's the alias I chose." Mikita shrugged, briefly regarding the two scared tribals, both now awake as if they had been sharing the conversation. He thought the name was boring, but his codename was something else.

"Archer…..You chose that?"

"Correct. Now how does this have any bear-"

Mikita stopped him as he finished up the last of the fruit he found in the rucksack of the tribals, tossing the remains away behind him. "Archer, a bowman. The bow and the arrow. You are an archer because you're directing the bow and the arrow, your judgment giving it the best effect on target." Archer picked up the unsaid comparison, Mikita having traced it from the implied reasoning of why he chose his codename as he was an executive.

"I guess you could say that….Micky." Mikita was momentarily pleased, grinning as he licked his teeth clean from his snack.

"But remember, the archer is nothing with a bow and arrow. You get what I'm saying?"

"…" Mikita heard the uncomfortable grumble of understanding, his education as a leading officer showing in that moment before he stood up and started to display the other thing he was educated in: information extraction. The younger Godfather, the one that had been hobbled and trapped, had tensed up with every movement Mikita had made. The other on the other hand was still as furious as ever, his Mohawk as red as the anger he was exhibiting. He thrashed about in his stretcher, so much so that he had more than once fallen down, forcing Mikita to right him again several times.

"See, if you two answer my questions as easily as the man in the watch does, I won't hurt you." He said in his friendly, philanthropic, Russian tinged tone he used to calm down locals. Despite the smile on his face and the gleam in his silver eyes, the knife had been waved at both of them anyway.

"Something simple. Your names, what are they?" Archer had downed his first glass of ale as the session started, hand holding onto his chair's arm. This was sadistic of Mikita, he needed no information other than _'go kill the tribals and get what has been lost.'_

The younger one had been subservient enough: "Jay."

The other one had been more difficult, still cursing him in mumbling Spanish or Portuguese. He tapped his chest with the side of his knife, laying the black blade on it before moving it gradually up until the point grazed his Adam's apple.

"If you don't answer my question baldy." The dome of the tribal had shone with sweat. "I will hurt you. I lose nothing by killing you."

"You're losing time lieutenant." Archer's young voice cut through the raspy speaker. The tribal, even with a knife at his throat kept his steel gaze, not answering.

'You know your….Chief? Is that what you call him? He has no problem getting around and stealing my shit without eyes, I think you can be just as well off." The knife came up, pointed at the tribal's irises. It was a feigned maneuver though, Mikita's free fist coming up and swinging through from the right. The tribal's head couldn't recoil in its trapped state; a good punch would've broken his neck then and there. The crack of his fist against the man's jaw was an audible thud that echoed to the phone and throughout the empty warehouse, the bodies of the dead having been tossed asides and eyes closed.

Archer flinched in his seat almost as if he had the one being hit, more punches delivered to the jaw of the tribal in succession. Punch followed punch in a well-practiced rhythm as if the tribal had been a punching bag, even in his beating he tried to spit at the lieutenant. The final blow was from his palm, striking his nose.

A red drizzle came out as well as his name. "Keav."

Mikita was barely winded from the beating he just delivered, cracking his knuckles. "Keav and Jay. Alright, that was simple enough. Now who are you?"

"Part of a people that will kill you." Keav had answered, almost sure of it. It was a fair enough answer but he was beating around the bush.

"Specifically please…Jay?" He asked, waltzing only a foot over to place himself in front of the younger tribal, his hair mismanaged and not cut. No answer came though, the boy only quivering as Mikita crossed is arms expectantly.

"You already know this information Mikita." Archer had argued through the PokéNav. It wasn't that he didn't know it was just that there had to be a progression he had to follow in interrogations. If it was an enemy soldier of a foreign legion or one of the splinter states it usually went from name to rank and to the confirming of what events led them to be captured. A car battery might've been useful just about now, but Mikita was always hands on. He silently shushed Archer, even though he couldn't hear.

The foot long knife was pressed underneath the man's breast, pressure being put on it enough for it to be pierced and for it hurt. The young tribal squealed, spewing out dozens of answers:

"_Godfather! Descendent! Padrinos! Father! Son!"_

"Are you my godfather?" Mikita asked, intrigued by the subject as he twisted the blade.

"You are the bastard son!" The defiant one had called out again. Mikita had taken the blow; he had heard worse, more racial defined insults. Russians and Americans were never liked in Japan post-war, both carrying the collective guilt of destroying the world even centuries after it happened. The American hatred in Japan had been bolstered by not only the third World War but the one that had preceded it as well, so in the end most Americans had been driven from the mainland and set up in the remains of costal China or Korea. Shanghai in particular had become a region known as Unova, which is actually where most of the political power lies today. The Russians were mostly left alone after the Americans left, most, as was the case in Mikita's family, finding home in the familiar Hoenn north. He had remained one hundred percent Slav, so the bastard son comment had been technically debunked as Mikita landed an uppercut to the tribal's chin.

"Who are your children then?"

"The ones you have been butchering." It was apparent he was referring to the Pokémon, eyes darting to the Charizard corpse. Embers from its tail had been all that remained of its life. Mikita remember what Archer had said during the camp raid: _All Pokémon come from one of their children._

"Who was your first born?" Mikita demanded out of both of them.

"Our missing child you found and were trying to take from us." Mikita knew it in the tone of their voices; they had really believed that they had been father to their Pokémon. Like most fathers they were also willing to die for their children's sake. In his wriggling Keav was able to unwind his hands, it only took a second for the man to reach up to the buckle in an attempt to free himself, however it only took a second after that for Mikita to seize the hand, sticking it with his knife into the green fabric. Mikita slipped with the aiming though, cutting off two of the man's finger on his left hand. Despite the fact Mikita tried again, the knife hitting dead center in his hand and pinning it to the stretcher.

"I need a name or else I'm going to cut your hand off Godfather!" Mikita threatened, Jay having pissed his trousers. He removed the knife after the screaming stopped echoing throughout the warehouse, getting out a lighter he found and heating the blade as best he could. The blood caked on and the blade smoked as Mikita awaited an answer.

"_Mew. Mew. Mew. Mew." _Keav had let the word flow from his mouth, almost foreign to Mikita's ears but causing Archer to unplug his ears.

Mikita mistook Keav, the sound he made mimicking a Purrloin or a Meowth. "Are you calling me a pussy?" The heated blade's flat was imprinted on the man's chest, burning the skin until it ran red and black, Mikita's pressure on it imprinting the mark. He removed it for a second to reheat the metal with the lighter, only now hearing Archer's calls from the PokéNav.

"He's not calling you a pussy lieutenant!"

"What is it then?!" He took the bleeding hand of Keav in his own, pressing the heated blade to where his fingers once were, cauterizing the wound, even if it caused more pain to the tribal. Jay had taken to spilling his guts on the floor, spitting up in horror. The blood stopped, the screaming subsided, as Archer finally explained. It had been actually torture for the executive; he couldn't at all stomach the garbled sound of pain.

"The Pokémon: Mew."

* * *

The hand was left to bleed as Mikita argued with Archer, the twitching of exposed bone causing Jay to gag.

"You know you could've told me that dead cat was a Mew." Archer had spent the next twenty minutes or so apparently pacing back and forth in his office downing his five bottles of scotch.

"It was non-mission imperative."

"Come now Archer, even someone as blunt as me knows how important Mew is to whatever grand scheme you guys are doing."

"It's not a Mew. At least, not in the fullest sense."

"And that means?"

"Kill off your two prisoners and then we'll talk." In all reality after the first beating and the screams from Keav, Archer couldn't stomach anymore of it and dropped the line, stumbling his way to his private restroom in the Silph Building.

"Grow a spine dammit!" Mikita yelled into his watch, placing it on again. He thought Mikita could teach Archer a thing or two, hardening him for being an officer, but that chalked up to nothing and he was left with two prisoners. Granted he did need information himself, though going in blind was already preferable to the complications that have been presented to him thus far. He knew about Mew in his studies. The definition of rare and mythical, it was once proposed as the sum of all zeroes, the one Pokémon that drew from every mutation that the neutron bombs put forward. In that sense it was powerful, and upon that definition it was the Godfather's child.

The name was the same in all languages: Mew. In fact it made sense in all honesty, three hundred years ago just after the bombs fell, stone carvings came back into fashion and some were dug up around this area during the recon performed by the expeditionary forces of the UNG to catalogue the world as it stood after the war. The government mistook it as a legend from before the war, but it was actually more modern then they thought.

"_Da, da_. We know your names and your first born….. What else do I need?" He pondered aloud, unknowingly speaking Russian to the bewildered and bleeding tribals.

"How many of you are there?" He asked, spinning the knife by using the hole which a lanyard was supposed to be attached.

"Enough to kill you."

"I swear I will kill that other guy if you don't give me straight answers Keav." The two started yelling at each other in Spanish, one of accepting death and the other a young coward. 'Enough to kill me? Then an entire god damned division of you.' His thoughts wandered as they conversed, loading his shotgun with the shells he had remaining as he made it sure that he wasn't going to repeat himself. The woody and metallic pump of the shotgun ushered an answer.

"A-Around four hundred!" Jay had sputtered out, earning a stern shout from Keav, his cut lips plump with pain.

'_Reasonable enough.' _Mikita had heard worse ratios. "How many children do you have?" It had proven to be best to talk in their state of mind at least.

"All of them." Keav had answered plainly, referring to all Pokémon obviously. To be fair it had always been the UNGA against the world, Mikita's mouth forming a straight pursed line in how dissatisfactory, yet familiar, the answer was. He enjoyed having the odds stacked against them, but he expected something a bit more….dramatic. He contemplated shooting Keav the shotgun coming around and being aimed at his gut, but there was still more information to be had and instead he only jabbed the metal barrel into his stomach as if it was a spear.

"Jay, same question." The Ithaca's cold muzzle rested against young man's head, Mikita casually glancing at his PokéNav for the time. He pushed the gun, stressing his neck on a pivot, unable to say the answer because of the fear.

"Five seconds." Mikita said. Mikita counted with his tongue, each cluck making the man flinch before he finally answered.

"I-" The countdown stopped. "I don't know!" The tribal was sniveling, crying almost. Mikita didn't enjoy the sight, but it was satisfying enough that the answer was accepted. The boy was broken, but the same could not be said for the resilient Keav. He had kicked over an M16 that the tribals had been carrying nearby in exchange for the Ithaca. The plastic STANAG magazine came out, dropped to the floor as he used two fingers to pull back the charging handle, ejecting the 5.56 round. All the right pins were pushed out as Mikita field stripped the weapon.

"Where'd you get these rifles?"

"The pirates!" The answer came from Keav too easily. Breaking the rifle he picked up his shotgun again.

"Bullshit." The metal barrel of the shotgun came to Keav's mouth, thrusting forward and breaking his teeth. The two white shards from his mouth were spat out after he removed the barrel.

"Pirates gave them to us." He reiterated again through his bleeding mouth.

"For what? Pirates aren't charitable."

"Fuck you gringo. You're better off killing me!" It was a threat, a false threat. The horror painting across the tribal's face as Mikita obliged him, not seriously thinking he would've.

The Godfather was guilty as sin and Mikita didn't like that at all. The cold barrel was placed against Keav's neck, and Mikita closed his eyes. One hand had come up to shield his face from the muzzle flash and the gore, the other slowly curling around the trigger. This time the sound of the shotgun was eclipsed by the sound of what might've been a watermelon being stomped on, the juices from it momentarily flying and coating everything in the feet around them in remnants of living flesh and grey matter. Without opening his eyes he used his arm to force the stretcher down and away, out of his sight as he opened his eyes to only a hole in the wall and red polka dots on his skin, on the wall, and on his gun. He didn't look down to the body, for he knew by experience that the tribal's head was probably gone as well as any other information that was stored in it. But with that it opened the way for the single remaining tribal to spill all he had to Mikita.

The shotgun was racked and the hot shell came out. The still bloody hand cupped the surviving tribal's neck roughly, shaking it playfully.

"That's what I do to people who fuck with me. Now are you going to answer my questions?"

Jay nodded his head as best as he could, Mikita pulling a seat up in front of the tribal and beginning a proper interrogation.

* * *

Unconscious and on the floor, he let Jay live as he scrounged through their supplies a second time near the now burnt out fire. He learned a suitable amount from the young tribal; enough that he held his part of the deal and let him live. Despite the blaring fact he had a hole in his calf, he would've lived.

The Godfathers had apparently prepping for a complete takeover of the region. Mikita didn't care about that in all actuality, however they thought that, for some reason he wasn't able to punch out of the tribal, that Dreamstone (or more specifically, the "Mew") was the key to that. These warehouses had in fact been their safe houses, the map correct in their location placement as well.

His scrounging yielded only a handful of more shells for the Ithaca, but there had been an abundance of side arms and ammo for them. The M1917 replaced the 220, an old American officer's revolver that predated the 220 by a little under a century. The .45 automatic rounds were shared from the stash he was keeping in all of his pockets, the need for magazines disappearing with a revolver. It was an old weapon, but it wouldn't jam in the jungle, and he wasn't going to chance a jam. Spinning the revolver's cylinder, thumbing each round in, he reflected over the answer he got from the tribal Jay.

They got their weapons from some third party, where he couldn't say or else he was better off dead. Mikita almost obliged if it hadn't been the fact that he had told him the name of the man that had been their leader and where he was going: Cortex Phrere was his name, born with no eyes and able to see anyway. Not much more about No-Eye's was revealed other than the fact he, and Dreamstone, were heading to "The Well". "The Well" was of course the former US Air Force Base Wellington.

Asides from that key information, he learned that their religion was basically as simple as it sounded: They gave birth to Mew after the cleansing fires and Mew gave birth to all their (grand) children.

Archer was dialed while his mind floated on the topic of Mew.

Mikita wetted his lips in preparation for a serious talk, finding shade from the light let in by the broken roof. "They're out of action Archer."

"Get anything interesting?" Archer was trying to divert the topic. Mikita was disappointed somewhat, nothing about a possible UNGA involvement was able to be found out. For better or worse, that was one thing he was yet to find out.

"No, I didn't. Now something about the fact I might be hauling a Mew?"

"It's not a Mew Mikita. Not entirely." Archer restated what he had said earlier. He had no problem with doing this, to transport this internationally protected species even if it was illegal. There was money in it, even if it would end up in the illegal research of a legend.

"Archer what kind of man are you?" Mikita asked.

"I don't see what you mean."

"I don't think you're a secretive type, you don't seem like a quirky or a particularly dishonest person. So what are you trying to do? Hold power over me?" He accused, thumbing the hammer of his revolver before he headed for an exit. He knew what new officers wanted to gain: power. Once, a long time ago, he had been in roughly the same position Archer had and was doing the same thing. One thing that was yet to be seen was whether or not someone would die as Mikita had allowed to happen.

"I am merely keeping the situation contained lieutenant." It was a half-assed excuse and they both knew it.

"Archer I can solve all your problems if you just stop holding back….So what do you mean "not entirely a Mew""?

"It's not a Mew because it's still a common animal. It's only half way through its evolution and for some reason Dreamstone swallowed the thing up and perfectly preserved it. So that means we are able to observe Pokémon DNA as it was being created and mutated. A blank slate. The entire Pokémon genome at our fingers."

* * *

A/N: A long time ago, in some old journal rotting away in some old mansion on top of a dying island, some old professor who lost his daughter chronicled a birth of a monster. A bad copy of the sum of all zeroes that came from an old country in a largely forgotten land. This is my take on that story if haven't already found out, a take that is tagging along another man's tale.


	15. Chapter 11

"I think I am being woefully being underpaid for such a discovery." The cylinder of the 1917 Revolver was spun as he talked to Archer, just now aware of the purpose of what he had just been carrying. This whole thing had been much bigger than him. Destroying an entire clan of an objective critical item wasn't big or grand. In fact it was rather demeaning for him seeing as it was basically what he had been doing for the last several years, but when that object was what was rumored to be Pokémon number zero that he had been delivering to a company known for their machinations for research, he recognizes when it was bigger than him.

"I thought someone like you wouldn't care for such morality behind this." To many, genetic engineering and research was a vile topic, cruel and unjust to its test subjects. Of course when cut between a Rocket Executive and an ex-officer, morality was non-existent.

"I don't care for it. All I know if I was not working for Rocket and found out the same thing, I would be paid millions, not thousands."

"For a Russian, you're rather capitalistic."

"Say what you want about Americans, but they understood capitalism, that much I know they got right." Mikita responded, fiddling with his new revolver as he lay back against a wall next to the warehouse's exit. Rummaging through the warehouse had yielded less supplies than he was comfortable with, or at least, useful supplies. Undoubtedly the tribals had scavenged what the US military had kept here hundreds of years before him, leaving only trivial things like firing pins for the AR-15s and can openers. Even the clothes had been scavenged, the tattered clothing he wore still remained: Baggy jeans, shot up scrubs, and most importantly a dented Kevlar vest. His light complexion had been rubbed raw by what was essentially guerilla fighting, the slight browning of tanning taking hold on what his clothes didn't cover up.

It was a far cry from what the tribals had looked like though, their skin a gravelly brown, most shaven and bare chested. No Eyes, or rather Cortex, had been clean shaven entirely, his round face having constantly twisted in battle probably due to the fact he had never seen himself.

Scars had meant nothing to both parties, one more not having any effect after having so many.

Archer had to scramble for words, trying to fight back against Mikita's demand for more money. Of course Rocket could've paid him much more; it was just Archer's fickle desire to have control over Mikita which was faltering.

"You know I could trap you in that god forsaken region if I needed to lieutenant." Mikita was slated to have traveled back on a Rocket flight from the town he came from in the same manner he had come to Guyana, of course that could've been pulled as Archer just noted. The only other way he could was to hitchhike his way up through Central America to the Baja Region where a small frontier city had sprouted up, and then get his way back home.

Despite this, Mikita had threatened with his upper hand. "Archer I will kill every single one of these Indians because I want to. Whether or not you get Dreamstone back is up to you. So how does eight hundred thousand sound?" Doubling the original payout was fair enough, for he had gotten into much more into what he had asked for, trying his hand at masquerading as a mercenary.

"This is not the time to negotiate the terms lieutenant."

"You have tons of time Archer. I'm probably borrowing some. Think about it." He basically hummed, revolver twirling in his hand. It was his turn to abuse a bad situation. Many times his patients often asked for more medicine than they needed in the hopes of getting wasted. He didn't oblige them of course, but that was a show of his integrity.

Somewhere, Giovanni was smiling as Mikita guessed, the all-knowing CEO of Rocket Industries probably tuned in. There were many small deals they made, bets almost. One of them was giving his handler a run for his money. It was merely small talk really, the conversations they had in his office drawn out due to the excellent alcohol Giovanni had carted up, but the request was true and there he was, teaching officer to executive officer.

"Then I will, but can you please move on with it?" With that Archer failed, Mikita wagging his head in disapproval before continuing as if anyone could see him, he having palmed the eyes of all the corpses closed.

"Archer, I've got reason to believe their base of operations is the former US Air Base in the region, can I get an approximate distance from my coordinates?" The PokéNav had been extremely useful, Devon Corporation doing Mikita well in that god forsaken country. The Nav had been designed for travelling trainers, so it was connected to several Devon satellites providing mostly location and communication services. He doubted that the UNGA could've tapped the line if they had any suspicion of something happening on that line, but it was a threat nonetheless to the increasingly paranoid Mikita.

Archer was well read, only taking a glance at the map of Guyana he had and referencing the coordinates the PokéNav had sent and responding. "Five hundred or so kilometers." Archer had been well-educated, too well-educated perhaps. The man dumped public education in favor of his own interests, falling into crime and eventually into Giovanni's apprenticeship. How it had happened was a blur of illicit dealings and brutally wrong deals with mobsters in the mafia, but in the end he found himself at a fairly high spot in the world.

The answer was disheartening to the ex-soldier, not knowing the landscape at all as opposed to Cortex and his Godfathers. However he figured that the rivers were his answers to that problem, the route of transportation they provided probably solving his conundrum.

"I presume I'm hoofing it John?" He used the Rocket Executive's real name, hoping that some form of sympathy would break through and send over a chopper. Even with the rivers, he would've been going upriver and not with it. His class at Vermillion was trained to do at the max eighty kilometers a day, twenty kilometer runs being the warm ups to every war game. If it was five hundred kilometers he could get to the bottom of a region within a week. That is speaking if he hadn't been knee capped in between or the jungle had been kind to him.

"Yes, lieutenant." Archer said.

"You know how absurd such a hike is?"

"Well you're not leaving the region till you get what we want Noelle. Was it nine hundred thousand you said?"

"Fine." Mikita strung out the word as if he were a whiny teenager. "Mikita out." He let the Nav retract as he huffed out. His legs already started aching from the walk in a strangely nostalgic stride, travelling across a foreign land, searching far and wide.


	16. Chapter 12

The first corpse he saw in Guyana that hadn't been because of his own doing was an impressive cadaver, and he had seen some cadavers in his day. Pokémon and human alike were familiar corpses to him, hell, sometimes there were combinations of the two by the more fanatical in the world. The effect of a dead body before him had lost its queasy effects on the seasoned soldier and medic, only the more brutal kills when either delivered by heavy ordinance or a Gyarados had made him occasionally get a bad taste in his mouth. The purple, six foot corpse in front of him had been stuck in a rock and a hard place, literally.

"Cause of death: Blunt trauma caused by stoning." There had been a single penetration round in between the lizard king's eyes, but that was clearly something that was done as either a precaution or to sweeten the deal. No Nidoking had ever exposed its head fully during combat, tucking itself in and arms up like a boxer. Pokémon had learned extraordinarily fast in their few centuries on Earth, a fact that every soldier in the Pokémon Crisis had learned for better or worse.

The Pokémon Crisis had started slowly; starting minutes after the first bomb delivered its radioactive payload and started killing off all living things in the area. The thing about neutron bomb warfare was that the goal was merely to kill people, and not commit collateral or structural damage, leaving equipment and areas for occupation by whoever delivered the bomb. Unfortunately that was plan on both sides, neutron bombs being dropped in much greater quantities than actual ICBMs. However nuclear warfare had never been done before save for Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan ironically, so the results would've been up to anyone's guess. On both sides however, the effective payload was severely underestimated. A Sievert is the unit of radiation in doses absorbed by a living being, the fatal dosage that was preferable in military use was eight or ten Sieverts. However that was what the world knew now, and when the bombs fell the Sieverts delivered of most of the bombs was only half of that, and in some areas, only a quarter. Half the world's population was killed during the war still, radiation poison dong its toll to an unprotected populace, not to even say of the bombing and conventional warfare. But something happened with the living beings that did survive.

The first real documentation was carried out in the 2090s by a professor in Unova. The notes were mostly lost in time, but enough material survived for the field to be blown open.

The radiation dosage delivered by the war was enough to make animal and man sick, the weaker examples dying out. However the strong ones who had sustained radiation poisoning and gave birth to another generation had progressed to have startling mutations. It was a cruel twist of natural selection essentially. Humanity had developed a strong resistance to radiation and mutation as years went on, enough so that they were able to go back out into the bombed out world after a few decades of waiting in the unaffected cities and towns, however when they ventured back out into the wild, they found monsters. Some were merely just another iteration of its original species such as Furret or Zigzagoon, not at all overly dangerous, among these types were the first domesticized Pokémon. However there were the more volatile species that came alive, born from what many considered the fires that ended the world.

The first Pokémon related deaths were by overzealous and curious explorers, provoking the mothers of Tediursa; coming too close to a Sharpedo; and in popular myth staring into the back of the shed skin of an oversized bug. As smaller towns were lost to Pokémon being provoked by mankind, the UNG had just begun to form uniting the world under one, peaceful existence. The only thing standing in the way of the peace at the time was not, for the first time in human history, not fellow man or a band of nations, but the new monsters that had begun to walk the Earth.

An Army was formed to combat these monsters, and for years it was an even matched battle as humanity had only just begun to understand and study these new monsters while also trying to control civilization from breaking out in anarchy. Some breathed fire like the legends of old, some could fly faster than sound, some (like the Nidoking before him which he ran a careful hand over, gauging its wounds) commanded immense strength, and probably most startling some were able to call on psychic abilities and control the land and weather.

How did they win? A war of atrocity was something the survivors of the Great War were already good at, having survived, but another solution presented itself in atomic research: Pokéballs.

The rest was history: Co-existence became beneficial and cities were built up due to Pokémon and Human resourcefulness. In time the destructive power of Pokémon was channeled into, oddly enough, sporting events; the UNGA being left to shoot not Pokémon (at least not regularly) but human raiders and pirates.

To some people, history ended after the Sootopolis Incident in Hoenn nearly half a century ago, however those who turned their eyes away from history then and there would come to miss something only the larger thinkers in the military, the higher echelons of the government, and apparently some in R industries had seen: The degradation of Pokémon as a whole.

A lot of species in their natural habitat had gotten inexplicably weaker for some reason, some dancing on the edge of endangered. What Mikita could guess from his position in the "need-to-know basis" tier ladder, it was something happening on the DNA and RNA level. However he wasn't allowed to do much research on it; the only ones who could've done research were either by government order or done in secret as Rocket had probably been doing if the Mew example was enough to surmise on.

Nidokings were not easy kills, this much Mikita knew. The higher caliber rifles such as the .338 or 7.62 rounds mostly called for when one appeared on the field. Of course his twelve gauge would've worked as well, but only the mad would've gotten close enough to a Nidoking for its surprising reach with its claws to do damage. His hand went over the defined curves of its skins, feeling the indents of where bruises and punctures were had, the purple bruises being well hidden with the Pokémon's skin color. Being stoned to death wasn't as uncommon as one would think it this day and age, some Pokémon being able to manipulate stones to their advantage for either cover or projectile usage, but the Nidoking had been beat to death with them. The piles of rocks that had strewn themselves around them had the blood of the Nidoking on them, being way too small to do any damage unless actually wielded.

His palm had come down separately over the lids of both of the large eyes, closing their anguished look as he reoriented himself to the south.

The corpse had been fairly fresh; or at least what had counted as fresh in a humid rainforest, so the killers had probably been close. Mikita had briefly wondered why this Nidoking had died in such a way, but he understood why a Nidoking would have to fight at all, and why there were no other bodies or sign of other bodies in the area.

The ruffles of a bush right next to him jerked his right arm to the holster of his M1917, hammer being pulled back before being drawn. Sights were trained on the bush; the sound of scratchy whimpering came from it.

_ "Chyoorrrtt."_ He rolled his eyes, recognizing the squeaks and holstering the revolver, trying to appear less threatening.

"Hey. Don't worry." His hands were grasped by each other behind his back, crouching down next to the bush. He saw the flash of pink and purple through the cover of the leaves. The Nidoking had clearly been protecting its young.

He put on a genuine smile; the one he used when confronting family members of dead soldiers or natives and opened his arms. Inch by inch, two Nidoran had come out from the greenery and approached the Russian cautiously.

There were obviously its children, hiding from him because he was a human. There was hardly a suspect list for this death so it had clearly been the Godfathers that had done this one. Why? Well that was something left up to debate.

He had been chewing on pomegranates the entire trek, if not for the calories it was for merely for his mouth to do something. He wasn't an avid talker or gossiper even among his peers to make the long patrols more bearable, but at least he had the option then during his service than he had in his solitude in Guyana.

He drew his knife slowly, cutting the fruit in half before placing it in front of the two scared Pokémon. The two curiously poked at it with their noses, Mikita giving them berth, aware of the poison attributes of the Nido species.

"Don't worry." He backed off even more as the Nidoran started nibbling at the fruit, when they were fully engrossed in the fruit he approached carefully, one hand outreaching as he carefully used two fingers to scratch the chin off the female Nidoran caringly. He remembered the same care he gave war orphans in Jordan, and then he realized a probable reason why the Godfathers had killed the Nidoking. Child soldiers, frowned upon, but still used. Children were easier to infect and control then adults or teens, and seeing as the Godfather had used Pokémon in the same lieu, child Pokémon were easier to enslave than the Nidoking that had laid dead. For these Nidoran to be raised into Nidoqueen and Nidoking against them, it would give them an immense tactical advantage.

For a second as he was petting the two Nidoran, the two Pokémon having allowed his touch after showing his non-threatening nature, he wondered where the mother was. Distracted by the two children, he didn't notice the Nidoqueen creep up to his side up until the last second. He shifted to his side as his body twisted to face the threat; however he wasn't able to avoid the charge, the horn of the five foot Nidoqueen being wedged into his body, the left side of his flesh taking the point as he was shoved back.

His body wrapped around the head and legs stamped into the ground, trying to pry the Nidoqueen away from him as it pushed him back.

Mikita had the height advantage by a foot, but then again the pure strength a Nidoqueen had, especially in defense of its children, had eclipsed him. The horn the Nidoqueen also had had also been laced with poison, he immediately felt the initial numbing sensation in a gash under his left arm pit, the horn precariously in between the left arm and his chest.

They burst through branches and trees, Mikita taking the full impact on his back before he finally got a good enough grip in his heels. The momentum of the Nidoqueen worked to his advantage as he stopped, falling back and hurling the Nidoqueen over him.

As the Nidoqueen scrambled to straight itself from its fall Mikita patted his hands up and down his left side, the dirt having combined with blood and clear poison in his wound. He felt his muscles give way in that part of the torso, however he quickly jabbed a vial of antivenin via syringe. The needle punctured his skin, the medical mixture flowing through the area of the gash even as he was still bleeding through his scrubs. Medical technology had advanced around military uses, especially in the Pokémon Crisis, so quick treatments and disposable one-use items had ruled first aid in the front, it being effective enough. Scratches and scars had been all over what the Kevlar and jeans hadn't cover, his forearm coming across his face to wipe away the saliva and blood that had been successfully spit out in the gut wrenching plow.

His now slick hand went for his holster, but he didn't fire it as he drew the gun, it wouldn't achieve anything against the armor like plates of the Nidoqueen, the Nidoking haven fallen because of it already being weakened. But even then, to shoot and kill the Nidoqueen wasn't his plan. He was better than the Godfathers.

The gun was twirled around, Mikita holding it by the barrel before tossing it front of the recovering Nidoqueen.

"Hey, hey, hey!" He pleaded for peace. "I'm not like them!" The Nidoqueen dragged its claws against the ground as it charged again, rocks being clumped together in the intent of being used as a weapon.

Having come from what was still a predominantly Asian land, the concept of using martial arts on the battlefield had sustained through the years. It was an odd idea to Mikita, especially after his training at Vermillion, his battlefield moniker of "Shotgun Surgeon" clearly denoting his preferred close quarters weapon of choice. But then again martial arts were more than just an offensive tool in the hands of people, it also being spiritual and harmonious in a person's spirit. With no reason not to, he had learned CQC as he was about to demonstrate.

His feet sidestepped right on the slippery dirt, the rock filled claw of the Nidoqueen coming down, missing him as he straightened his body almost chest to chest with the skewed stance of the swinging Nidoqueen. The rock impacted on the ground, shattering and sending pinching shrapnel up into the air as his right forearm punted its neck, the winds getting knocked out of it. The Nidoqueen's left claw had come up pry at Mikita, but his left hand came down to grasp it by its scaly wrist, pushing the entire hand down and cracking it. The pain distracted the Nidoqueen, its focusing lost as Mikita's free arm once again came to its neck, this time holding the position as he brought the oversized lizard down.

Its mouth came open, trying to bite Mikita, but with a blow to its nose its head was sent back, imprinted in the mud as it was pinned.

"I know you can understand me!" Mikita brought his head down, forehead touching the side of the Nidoqueen's as he whispered into its ear. "I don't want to hurt you, or do anything to your children. _Pozhaluista_." He heard it incessantly growling, as well as the patter of the two concerned children catching up, but it stopped resisting. Slowly, he removed himself from it, sitting on its chest as he brought out bandages from his pack. Gingerly, he took the hand it cracked and observed it. From what he just did to it there was obvious bruising, but it hadn't been broken. His two thumbs had pushed into the wrist, massaging it for a brief moment before he looked over what other damage he could've done. The mental medical checklist in his head for the Nidoqueen was cleared before he applied bandages to the place the horn ad punctured, the poisoning having noticeably laxxing the muscles in that area, numbing the pain. As he dismounted he thought of going for his Ithaca, but killing this Nidoqueen was to achieve nothing.

He backed off slowly, hands in the air, as the Nidoqueen righted itself almost humiliatingly in front of its children.

"Hey look. I'm not _Les Padrinos_. I don't want to hurt you. I just want to hurt them. They took something from me, and I think you understand that as well as I do now." The two Nidoran had taken cover behind their mother's tail, the Nidoqueen protectively giving Mikita as an aggressive look as it could. To its surprise Mikita returned it, fists curled and his nails digging into his palms as he stifled the autonomous rage that had built up whenever he fought.

Mikita's eyes always had a special quality: silver eyes as sharp as a knife, the color of gun metal. It was no wonder he always had won staring contests when he was younger, or why his gaze had been beyond intimidating to the freshman troops. Through years of experience he learned that staring down an opponent was a good way to avoid confrontation, this more so evident in Pokémon than it had insubordinate troops.

The male Nidoran had picked up the 1917 revolver with its teeth; running up to Mikita after the mother whispered something in their language. No words were exchanged, but the Nidoran showed gratitude in Mikita not killing them or their mother. The wooden, checkered grip was in his hand as he inspected the revolver quickly for damage; the Nidoran scurrying back to the protection of its mother. The leather holster clicked as the gun was safely secure in it, Mikita's arm well away from any of his weapons as the Nidoqueen hadn't yet let him away from its gaze.

The Pokémon in these less than fully developed areas were harder in both psyche and body, less open to humans then those who developed in the mainland of Japan. For obvious reasons as well, unfamiliar with human contact, not having learned the lessons of the Crisis.

As wary as the Nidoqueen was, with a harsh growl to Mikita, and a tender one to her children, she pointed in a direction south before disappearing into the brush.

Maybe the Nidoqueen was telling him off, or for him to leave, but the direction it pointed to was south and in the general direction he was headed.

The poison he took in was barely enough to warrant any worry that deep in the forest, the poison the Nido species had used was often only used to paralyze pray, only rare incidents did they actually use it as a tool to kill. His body turned to walk in that direction, but as he did he realized the stinging pain of something having been stabbing him in the back. The rush had sent him through dozens of branches and bushes so it was no surprise a branch had lodged into the other side of his body. Holding his breath, the branch was pulled all the way through, the rest being picked out by a knife as a squirt of biofoam was placed over the wound. He had endured worse battlefield injuries, but what he was amassing in Guyana hadn't even begun to match the pain of why he was there.


	17. Chapter 13

His right arm was fucked up even more as he collided with a tree trunk, the bark both stabbing and scratching away at the twisted body part. The bone had been twisted at the elbow, the arm sent almost ninety degrees the way it shouldn't have gone after a tribal had deflected one of his punches and kicked in his arm before the motley group had started shooting at him. A bullet had found its way almost entirely through his hand as he raised it to block his face from fire, it instead getting stuck almost all the way through before stopping in his right palm. Before he even could have thought about doing anything about it he had to deal with the Mightyena that was running at him, snarling and teeth fully barred as it jumped up to Mikita, breaking through the forest before its master could have.

"FUCK OFF!" His battlefield rage channeled through to his left hand, it swinging away as the Mightyena caught his elbow. The teeth bit into it his flesh before Mikita fell onto the ground with the Mightyena on the bottom, cracking its neck from its weight as he pushed the corpse away and drew his 1917 just as the tribals broke through with their G36s. The German weapon was one of the more sophisticated weapons in the arsenal, them not knowing how to fire it as Mikita ran toward them trying to get them away from him. The revolver was shoved into the chin of the front most tribal, still fiddling with his weapon as Mikita fired up into his cranium, body falling down in the darkening light.

Mikita had just been going the direction that the Nidoqueen had pointed him at, apparently leading him to a heavily patrolled path which the Godfathers used to traverse that part of the region. Without that path Mikita would've tacked on another few days of fumbling through the forest, but the path there had been somewhat maintained and good enough for his well-trained and rugged feet. However he wasn't trained for bumping into a patrol that had come around a corner of a tree on the path he was also traversing. He ran back into the forest as his arm had been broken, Pokémon sent scurrying from the first non-Godfather in the area in years as they tracked him down, but it was no use running when the enemy had been so versed in jungle combat.

Mikita felt the butt of the plastic G36 hit his chest as he reaimed the revolver, throwing off the shot and sending the barrel pointing off into the sky, bullets and birds flying from the shock. Mikita hooked his legs onto the tribal that he had confronted, dragging him down as his body rattled from the impact.

A machete had come down as he kept his leg twisted around the also fallen Godfather's, Mikita jerking right enough for the blade to miss his head and to lodge itself in the ground. Mikita's gun came up fast enough, a .45 round punching through the man's neck before he aimed it down his own body to the head of the tribal he had ensnared. The bullet had careened into the tribal's gun, breaking the handle as it twisted into the Godfather's skull, the wet smashing sound of his head contents being spewed out the back eclipsed by the remaining tribal that had finally gotten a hold of his rifle and aimed at Mikita. The burst of fire lit up the night as the tracers skewed too close to Mikita, the gunshots deafening and blinding him as the Kevlar vest did its job by the bare thread of its artificial fibers. Each shot had hit his chest, the pressure from the rounds transferring from bullet, through the vest, and into his vital organs as each round had failed to penetrate. He wanted to throw up, but before he could his body was on autopilot, body twisting to get a good shot of the tribal that had stood three feet to the left of him, unloading 5.56 rounds into his chest.

Untrapping himself from the ground the shots were returned into the bare chest of the Godfather, Mikita thankful that whoever was supplying them also didn't give them enough body armor to pass around. The Godfather's throat gurgled as blood filled his lungs, a hearty head-butt from Mikita onto his opponent's nose killing the last of the patrol group with a painful cry of rage that flew from his lungs and rattled his own teeth.

The entire event hadn't even prospered in five minutes; only taking what Mikita could guess was two. He would've counted on his hand, but there had been a bullet lodged into it and his second favorite arm had been bent. Being in the Army he was often called blind and arrogant for going to war in a world that had tired of it, but being blind was what he needed then and there as his remaining arm grasped the bent one firmly. The more he thought about what he was about to do the less he wanted to do it, but grinding his teeth together he had begun to pull his arm back into position.

Bones had slid and cracked in his right arm as he pulled, an echoing snap reverberating through his body letting him know when it had been back in place.

He stomped the ground in his pain, not yelling to draw any more attention to him before he quickly brought his right hand to his mouth, taking the slug in his mouth before spitting it out. The pain was immense; enough to have him thump on the ground as he bit back pain. It wasn't the first time he wished he was dead, but the ground was still warm from it baking in the sun, it conforming to Mikita's panting body as he kept still and let the pain flow through him and out. His fingers danced over the PokéNav as he unconsciously dialed Archer's number, then resting on his chest and digging out the still hot, embedded rounds that peppered him.

As was usual Archer picked up even before the phone started ringing.

"What is it now?" Archer had asked, sounding as usual, pissed off.

"Just shut up and stay with me Archer." His pained breaths were heard even through the PokéNav. Archer wasn't the only one listening in to this call, the entire situation room having been wired to the call. Blood had run cold throughout the Rocketeers as Archer held the phone up to his head, Mikita's location on a blurry map of the region shown on the screen of the situation room thousands of miles away.

"Something-" Archer stopped himself. "What's wrong lieutenant?"

"I'll be FINE DAMMIT." His pain organized in his brain as rage, he vocalizing it before sobbing. People did funny things when they were writhing in pain, some praying, some throwing up, some laughing, which was along the lines of what Mikita had been doing now as he tried to escape from it, his body convulsing after the punishment of being shot over thirty times, but no bullets piercing his skin. It wasn't the first time he'd been shot, broke a bone, or bruised his inner organs, but this time had felt different. It was almost as if the protecting veil of being a soldier wasn't there, the blessing of whatever god of war there was not looking after Mikita anymore.

"What's…"He spit into the ground as he turned onto his back, hand ferociously running up and down his right arm to calm the pain. "What's the alternative to me Archer?"

"Don't talk like that lieutenant."

"What's the alternative?" He asked again, spitting through his teeth.

"We don't count on you failing lieutenant." Archer lied.

"That's certainly GOD DAMN endearing." He crawled over to a tree, back against the trunk as the beige bandages were unrolled. He was running out, the final rolls coming from the bottom of the bag. Every single piece of frustration had been amplified in that moment. His fist hit the wood, leaves falling from the tree in his anger, biting what bandage he had left to cover up his palm. The bite mark on his left elbow had started stinging, the joint being covered up in the last of that particular bandage roll.

"You've been injured lieutenant." Archer had surmised, the quiet whispers of his advisors around him at a loss of what to do. Helplessness was something that powerful men were not used to feeling, as was why Archer had momentarily motioned his fingers over 911 in some silly notion there was a Guyanese police force.

"I'll be fine. I just need someone to talk to ride out the pain with."

"I'm not good with conversation lieutenant." Archer's advisors around him had looked at the executive disapprovingly, Archer giving in with a cold sigh. "But if you insist."

Mikita didn't particularly like talking to Archer but he needed something else to focus on as he was recovering. It was what his own patients did, talk to him in their dire moments, talking as if to keep death away and the sound of a comforting voice close.

"How's the weather back home?" Archer hadn't been out of the building ever since Mikita had first set foot in Guyana; in fact all his meals had been delivered to the building, a telltale sign to the public that something was happening. Archer was the only man who had consistently ordered the same restaurant out, having been picky about his kielbasa to keep ordering from the same restaurant as opposed to multiple ones that the other executives had done during long operations. Asides from that what was happening in Guyana had been played down by both the UNGA and R Industries, Proton and Petrel's hearings that were planned to take place in the Unova region prompting a stop in the already sparse UNGA deployments in the American Atlantic coastlines. The government and the army were being questioned in an attempt to stall a response that would've jeopardized the secret of Dreamstone. Of course merely keeping secrets had paled in relation to the Godfathers' interference.

Silently and franticly looking around his staff, they all shrugged, not having seen the sky or breathed fresh air in days.

"It's…..rather peachy." The rumble outside spoke of thunder though, Mikita feeling the vibration even through the Nav. He forced a smile as he felt the pain fizz from the wound in his hand, a hotness proceeding up his forearm slowly.

"Nice to know." Guyana had been damp, hot, and it was night there. The ruffle of the branches above him were no doubt Pokémon resettling after the fight, Mikita being diligent enough to fumble his shotgun forward into his lap and replace used rounds in the revolver.

"Remind me Archer….John. How does a poor _mudack_ like you end up in control over this operation?"

Archer didn't even think before he spoke, happy to tell his story before he had realized what he was doing: "I came from lower Celadon. Was a trainer some time ago, much like you. Sought something more meaningful to do than just aimlessly travel the world."

"I guess we are kindred spirits then." Mikita admitted. Fortree had been just as cramped as Guyana had been, the desire to get out just about the same.

"Perhaps, but Rocket was my get away while the military was yours." Archer shouldn't have had complained with how Giovanni chose Mikita, his reasoning for picking the young cast away that became his newest executive not much different than how he chose Mikita.

"What in Rocket made it so appealing for you? You have to have a very particular mindset to be in our current positions you know."

"Well if I am honest with you lieutenant..."

The ex-officer snickered. "I hope you are."

"There are some seductive properties of being in R Industries. We are not throwing around media hyping lies when we make the claim that 'We are the Future'. There is good business in doing what we have done." Wherein the Battle Company failed, Silph, and R Industries by extension, picked up on that.

"I usually strayed away from your warp panels at Sand Castle Base admittedly, that's just too futuristic for me you understand?" Rocket had its fair share of almost space age products. Free healthcare for Pokémon via the fact they were leaders in such research, the mass production and improvement of Pokéballs via atomic research, and warp panel technology akin to sci-fi teleports. Most of these products Mikita accepted save for the warp panels which often gave him headaches. Weirdly enough he was nostalgic for the pain as the slow wave of agony slowly passed into the nerves in his shoulder, his body cringing in response.

Pokémon research as a whole though, was a young field, for better or worse.

"Ah yes, the base off of Midway. Well, our products in military deployment are usually in Beta and Alpha testing. You can file a complaint when you return Mikita." Archer deviated his usual pissed off tone to a vaguely sarcastic one.

Mikita recounted the empty rows of desks in the Silph building the night he met the Boss. "Before I left the building I heard some stock jockeys clamor over the market. What were you guys doing before this happened?"

As expected from what was public about the raid in Guyana, the stocks of R Industries collapsed for days after, only just now climbing to acceptable levels. "We were trying to press for premium products. Essentially items reserved for league officials and Rangers to be put down to public retailing. Styluses and Ultra class Pokéball namely." There were always political implications of giving the public such strong products allowing for easier control of Pokémon. Those unready to own say, a Garchomp could've more easily been captured one and tip both safety and competitive guidelines. In fact such unreadiness had gotten Mikita in this position.

"Master class looking for a re-run?" Mikita curiously asked, production having stopped years before he was born, those remaining costing more than he was going to get in this contract.

"It all depends on your success Lieutenant."

"This Dreamstone must really be beyond important then. Why not just make this whole thing public? Taking fire from gods are up to few men in this world." He struggled to say the words in his strained and fake accent, scratching dirt off of his bandages.

"Would you rather steal from gods or be one?"

"I see your point."

"And if a god offered you redemption, would you take it?" The words echoed in Mikita's head, some sentence he must've heard before. He came up with an answer anyway.

"I'm not looking for redemption Archer. This is just me being desperate."

* * *

A/N: The next chapter is the start of many off glimpses to the past. Our boy Micky here is stuck in the past sometimes, some vague form of Memory Link brought out by old traumatics on the battlefields half way up and down the world. An 18 year old new officer out of Vermillion to a 24 year old soldier acting ten times his age, you can fit a lot into a year, let alone six. An average infantryman spent 240 days fighting in Vietnam out of the year while the WW2 vets spent about forty or so days. In this world its almost a 365 day ordeal, give or take the one or two weeks off. Time might be brutally linear in its own twisted sense, but hell, it certainly is long. I guess that's my explanation about why Mikita is so young (24 years old). Two thousand days of fighting around the world tends to mature a man almost grimly (look at the US President you need any proof of such ageing through a relatively short time), especially through the scars he wears. Heck, maybe even a year isn't gauged the same as it is now. Landwalker's world is all sorts of taboo. Besides, in a world where Tyranitar and Skamory exist, life expectancy probably isn't the highest.


	18. Chapter 14: Vietnam

Archer reminded Mikita of himself in a way, as he was once an officer wanting to prove himself. Needless to say both had or were currently experiencing a trial by fire.

They had small talk as the pain disappeared from Mikita's body, pain pills taken dampening what remained. Archer was amiable in some degree, but there always that underlying façade he wore, of being a big man in a small world while it really was the other way around. Perhaps one day he could teach Archer that, but still, now was not that time.

The bodies around him had remained, dissolving into black slumps in the Guyana night as his own vision faltered.

It truly wasn't the best area to sleep, but his body had given out and if he had any thoughts of resisting the temptation they would've been futile. Tucking his shotgun at his side and keeping his pistol in his holster, he closed his eyes and lay back on his padded bag and dreamed.

* * *

His first time out of the central regions was his first year as an officer. Green, fresh faced, itching to prove himself. Generally the first time you go to war is like the first time you have sex, it's exhilarating, you probably end up hurting someone and yourself, and either way it ends ways too fast.

When the bombs fell on everywhere but Japan the people, especially the more spiritual among them, had thought them the chosen people to reshape the world as they saw fit. Significant portions of the government had splintered to believe this, compounded by the emergence of the Pokémon threat. Had it not been for the surviving U.S Pacific fleet or the remnants of the Chinese ground forces bolstering the government forces, Japan would've fallen into civil war. The splinter group that believed that they had been the master race to rule all of the world were promptly kicked out of the country and they congregated to a time tested area that would've proven hard to attack: Vietnam. Around a fourth of the Japanese SDF had defected with the splinter group and promptly joined the Vietcong forces in the area that aligned themselves with them in their attempt to reform society from its burnt husk.

In no capacity were they able to retake Japan, but for the newly made UNGA it was also impossible to retake Vietnam. For about 150 years the splinter group existed due to the difficulty of devoting man power to such a campaign to eliminate them; however that didn't dissuade occasional offensives.

Operation Fortune Soul was one of them. Compared to the rest of the raids that had taken up to that point, this one had been the most major action in Vietnam. The objective was to simply hold a base of operations in the region to pave way for further offensives, said base to be set up on the Ha Long Bay.

It was a start of a new form of warfare for the UNGA, change from victory being declared on not by body count, but by territory gained. The UNG hadn't considered resettling mainland China or the Philippines, the UNG territories in the Middle-East and Western Europe not having enough logistics to spread out. If it wasn't resources to sustain colonization, it was the pirates or raiders that existed otherwise, let alone the Pokémon.

Vietnam's conflicts were always a constant topic in the UNGA Academy, guerilla fighting the particular topic of the wars there. So High Command sought it best for the newest wave of officers, those lessons fresh in their minds, to comprise the force for the land grab. Specifically, High Command asked for the Vermillion class of 2319. Mikita's class. Mostly due to the fact they had gone through a very special training regimen.

It wasn't taking the bay that was going to be difficult though, it was merely holding onto it that had always been difficult. The guerilla fighters in Vietnam did their handiwork in the forests that comprised of most of Vietnam and the immediate area around the bay. The UNGA came in hard and fast, helicopters and gunships backed up by the formerly USS Missouri and Enterprise. The Missouri provided fire support while the Enterprise fielded the helicopters and the jets. By the time the helicopters arrived the bay was desolate, the rock formations either shelled out or collapsed into the water leaving the floating villages adrift and splintered throughout the waters.

Mikita spent his first hours in Vietnam running up and down the damp forest, pushing out debris and attending to the wounded that sat there covering the only road to the buzzing city full of the rebels. Colloquially the splinter group had been known as "The Reformers" but as far as the younger Mikita Noelle and most of the men next to him were concerned, they were the enemy.

"They can't burn this forest down because of Orre. Remember that Noelle?" He had just met his Captain in the prior hours, the two barely familiarizing each other as they swept back and forth through the forest keeping check with the company's positions as they moved up to Ha Long City. His round face had shown veterancy, the smallest scars on his face as distinguishable as the lines around his mouth.

The Captain had been answering his spite on why napalm hadn't been deployed as it had been during the original Vietnam conflict; of course with his Captain's brash answer he remembered the massacre at Orre. He gripped his sabre a little tighter as he heard the sharp crack of stray shots out in the distance.

The entire company hadn't been in active combat in their position pushing toward the city, but they had been taking stray potshots from the hidden guerilla Reformers. There were enough corpsmen to tend to the wounded, but the more serious cases having been lifted back to the Enterprise as the FOB was set up back in the bay. The injuries did prove to introduce Mikita to some of his new platoon though. Among them there was Sergeant Crowe, the seasoned Pokémon handler with too much emotional weight on his Pokémon that had vaguely reminded Mikita of his ex-trainerdom; having already taken shrapnel after a booby-trapped grenade went off, taking the shards instead of his Espeon. It was worth knowing the dozen or so soldiers, give or take depending on the tour, in his platoon and company as a whole. As it turned out, he would spend the years with them bleeding, killing, and suffering together.

The conditions were much too humid, most of the standard issue armor having been left behind in favor of comfort and maneuverability in the cramp environment. Even the normally hot-blooded Houndour and Mightyena were uncomfortable in the heat, but the sweat on their brows was preferable to a bullet between them.

In retrospect Mikita romping through the forest as the first thing he ever did in a deployment was an irony, especially when he looked back on the memory of Vietnam from Guyana.

* * *

They made it to the city by noon, and they promptly spent the day fighting until midnight. It hadn't been as simple as the Academy, or even the veterans among them, had made it out to be. First contact had rattled his soul immensely at the outskirt of the city, he having been dragged down by the Captain by his collar as he issued orders instead of Mikita, neglecting to order the platoon to fan out as the traces passed over their head. The city wall had already been punched through by airstrikes and artillery, but that was much support they were going to get from the Enterprise and the Missouri with such an obscure battle line about to take place, as well as taking the city roughly intact being the goal.

The Captain sent a quick automatic burst from his rifle in between the suppressing fire from the Reformers, the rest of the company stuck in a similar position held up against the wall.

"You shoot your god damn gun yet Noelle?" Mikita pulled back the slide of his M16, the foregrip it had seemingly locked to Mikita's hand in his anxiety. The rattle of machine gun fire that hit the wall vibrated the men planted against it, Mikita's helmet having fallen off because of it. The Captain quickly picked it back up and tied the straps around his chin, caring almost, but eyes sharp like a samurai's sword. The Captain had hailed from one of those fabled feudal warriors. Or at least that's how the rumor went, but whether or not it was true the Captain had had the discipline and leadership of one.

"First time is always the hardest Noelle." If the context wasn't apparent Mikita would've mistook him as a father going over the Beedrill and the Vespiqueen, but it wasn't. Maybe he was referring to the first kill, the first contact, or maybe perhaps the first time a man could've died under his command. But there was a first time for everything, and Mikita knew the first time he would have to kill for the UNGA was so soon, it literally seemed to be just around the corner.

"Worried." It was the only word Mikita could say as he gathered his nerves for the sake of the men around him, even though he was only eighteen and many people around him had been far older than him. The difference between him and everyone else though was that he went to the academy and they didn't.

"You'll get over it." The Captain tossed him a grenade, which he caught like a rebounding Pokéball. He knew what the Captain was planning to deal with the MG fire.

Mikita stepped in front of his captain, two fingers going up in a V signaling two men on the other side of the wall to pay attention. They followed as Mikita' balled his fist and punched in the air in the direction of the MG. It was the signal for grenades. His hand opened again as the grenades were readied, fingers going down in a count down.

"Covering fire!" Mikita yelled at the top of his lungs, an automatic rifleman on their side opening up as the three men leaned asides the wall and threw the frags into the crater that the Reformer LMG team had taken cover in.

The grenades bounced against the cobblestone road until they hit their target, Mikita's throwing arm well practiced as a trainer. Shrapnel flew as that LMG team was dealt with, the explosion rocking the city street as the UNGA soldiers piled through immediately after, the blood and gibs from the explosives burnt and dried to ash, carcasses being tossed out onto the street.

"Get to cover! Get to cover!" The troopers that had taken point first had come under fire from all directions, bait for the rest troopers to pick out target from the buildings that lined the street.

"Marx, you're up!" The Captain ordered as Mikita motioned his platoon up into a crater for cover.

"Rog'!" The automatic rifleman had set up at the edge of the crater facing the enemy, two other men hiding in the depression along with the platoon's new XO. Anyone who hadn't been in cover was cut down, the rest of the platoon trapped still behind the city's wall as a hail of rifle fire came from the Reformers down the street, hiding behind the rubble of the buildings that had been on the outskirts of the city.

The automatic rifleman's hand slapped the bipod of his Pecheneg, setting it up while keeping his head down. The Reformers weren't a proper military force, most not being able to knick them even as the crater wasn't more than a few feet into the ground. Though Mikita was having a hard time himself bringing his own rifle up as each shot careened over him, tracers being distinct from the cloudy sky he stared up into in between his flinches.

"First time, lieutenant?" One of the riflemen in the crater with him had asked as the automatic rifleman tried his best to ready his weapon under fire. Blonde, blue eyes, a few years older than him if he remembered correctly from the dossier. He had been assigned to a new platoon in a new company, promptly called Delta within their regiment among others. All of them were fairly new, save for the Captain and Tuga Marx, grizzled veterans not of their own accord. Only the Captain and Mikita had gone to the academy to receive training though, the rest merely attending boot camp.

"Guess you could say that." He had been training for years, but today was his first real combat engagement. It was shameful nonetheless, he'd been under fire before, but in the heat of battle of the first time, it was understandable.

"What?!" Yelled the rifleman, George Haven. An explosion drowned out Mikita's voice, also compounded by the fact his accent had been showing strongly.

"Name's Mikita. Hoenn." He replaced the subject with introductions, a hand outreached to both of the riflemen compacting their bodies to hide below the top of the crater, the Reformers clearly not letting up for a good minute or so.

"Corporal George Haven. Ireland." The rifleman smiled, shaking Mikita's hand with both of his while the fight continued, somehow showing a genuine grin in the light of their current situation that had threatened to put a bullet between those shiny whites.

"Private Clarick Covey. Johto." The designated marksman had been a bit more serious, only barely shaking his XO's hand before clamping his grip around his M21, his square jaw tightening. Despite the rounds passing over their crater, his body was steady, understandable seeing as he had been the more precise shooters in the group. Behinds his rather big ears was a pencil that defiantly stayed oddly.

The first metallic sounding barrages of fire from the automatic rifleman's Pecheneg had fired away, shell casing rolling down to the bottom of the crater as the gunner single-handedly silenced fire coming at the UNGA for a second. Return fire came fast and the gunner ducked down into the crater, joining the formalities.

"Automatic rifleman Sergeant Tuga Marx, lieutenant. Spaniard" As the two locked hands Mikita noticed the beads that had been entwined within Marx's grip. Glancing down the wooden texture against Mikita's bare and raw palms had been a wooden necklace holding a cross.

"Thou shalt not kill?" Mikita asked snidely as he rolled over on his belly, readying for a string of shots of his own.

"Thou shalt not murder." Marx had corrected, his tanned complexion already dirty with hot dirt and burns. Mikita only slightly nodded, remembering that the rest of the platoon was pinned down from movement as the rest of the platoon that had made it in within the city was under fire.

The sandbags that had been still standing almost directly across the street from them gave a good firing angle, something that their DMR could've used to shoot out windows and LMG position, the only problem was getting Covey to that position meters away.

They talked without words, Mikita picking out people with his fingers as the fire above them was much too loud for words, the sound of staffing helicopters and planes from the Enterprise not helping despite the destruction they brought. With a hard grasp on Marx's shoulder he returned to his LMG, fingers curling around the trigger before the Reformers could've stopped his hail of fire. His steam of rounds painted the street with fire, the muzzle flash nearly blinding Mikita who had crouched up and shouldered his rifle for the first time in combat. The M16A1's sights had been tripled checked by a nervous Mikita, pre-battle checklists having taken him over in the minutes prior to first contact in his anxiety. His pockets were all closed, clothing and armor tight around his body and all the straps set as if it would've prolonged the moment any longer.

He closed his eyes, despite the fact he fired, not wanting to see what would've happened if he messed up, shots skewing in the general direction of a suppressed enemy. His toes tingled and he felt his nose run, his mind on overload.

Covey had broken out running toward the sand bags, skidding and impacting them before setting up his rifle and sighting it.

The recoil had numbed his shoulder, the automatic fire being controlled as it burned through his thirty round magazine. The weapon clicked empty as he collapsed back down into the crater, panting. Haven had replaced Mikita as he dropped the hot magazine, fumbling getting a new one from his ammo pouch into the mag well of the M16. The plastic magazine was shoved in as Mikita's thumb clicked the bolt catch, joining Haven in his suppressing fire.

The wooden grip of Covey's M21 was set up on the sandbags angled up to the windows, his cheek cemented on the stock as one eye peered into the optic. His lungs took in the dirty air, drowning out the sound around him as he peered into a two story building, the edge of someone's arms sticking out into view of a window. Shifting the sight a few inches to the right into the wall, he pulled the trigger.

The .308 round punched through the weak wall construction, the red puff of blood, barely visible through the window a positive hit on one tango.

"Tango down!" Covey transitioned, aim snapping from target to target that were occupied with the three men putting down fire in the crater, another UNGA platoon moving up from the opposite side of the street.

"MOVE UP!" Haven loaded in a smoke round into his grenade launcher's slot, firing it off in front of them obscuring the field of fire enough for the rest of his Delta platoon to move up, Mikita also taking the cover to drag fallen men into the crater. The platoon covered up and down the street behind cover that the now fallen Reformers had used, Houndours running past and into the smoke, flickering flames burning outs survivors in the veil.

"I thought Vermillion taught better tactics then that Lieutenant?" The maneuver he had just preformed was indeed simple as the Captain had remarked as he walked over, but it worked. "I also didn't know you tended to the enemy as well."

The chaos that still lingered over them as the battle pushed forward had him drag bodies in general into the crater, most the injuries non-lethal, but debilitating. The UNGA soldiers that had been injured hadn't noticed the one Reformer Mikita had dragged into the hole with him, nor did he as he started sprinkling Sulfanilamide over the wounds.

"Chyrot!"

The still coherent Vietnamese Reformer reached up for his neck as they both realized where he was, the wounded UNGA troops next to him grabbing him down.

Reflexively Mikita went for the weapon his hand found first: the breaching shotgun that clung to the right side of his chest. The buckshot meant for blowing open doors was brought down to the Reformer, the shot skewed as he stumbled back from the surprise. Finger slipping on the trigger the booming shot was at point blank, men around them wondering what the hell had just happened as their heads rung with bells.

The Reformer's arm had been blown off at the shoulder socket, pieces of flesh all over the crater as the wounded fluttered their eyes after the bright flash. No one else had been hurt, but the wounded shuffled away from the mutilated body as Mikita backed off, falling to the ground as he realized what he had done. The Reformer had seemingly deflated, the frantic rise and fall of his chest failing to continue as he coughed up blood, men scrambling away from the crimson puddle as the first drops of rain started coming down.

The damage had almost been….surgical, as Marx had noticed.

"A real shotgun surgeon huh?"

* * *

The push into the city would've been easy if it wasn't for the fact the artillery or the airstrikes had consistently bombed buildings onto the road and crippled the roads themselves, rubble scattering and making for an uneven environment. The coastal dirt that the city had been built on top of was already volatile to collapse and sinkholes in some places, adding the torrential conditions to the mix made for certainly a memorable first battle.

The patter against their helmets was so debilitating that they threw the head gear away, their heads soaked, those without goggles unable to aim as the battle went on. The tracers had danced in the air like the raindrops that fell, the wind sending dirt flying when it hadn't been blocked by the buildings that still stood.

All flights had been grounded and the only thing coming from the sky was the crack of thunder in between the bursts of machine gun fire.

"This shit fucking sucks LT!" Haven had tried his best to steady his rifle, but even as he did the rain was too slippery to get a stable aim on his elevated position on top of what used to be a roof now on the ground. In the days to come, the less unprepared and the reckless would've drowned, fallen ill, or gotten jungle sickness. But in the heat of battle, the future wasn't any priority of Mikita's. Maybe the problem was that the great leaders were often caught un in battle all the time, unable to weigh in on events in the future, instead working on covering up the past in a hail of gunfire. If that was the reason it was probably why Mikita had been so insensitive about Mew in Guyana, about the repercussions it would've had if he delivered it to Rocket.

"Well quit your bitching and get me fire on those .50s!" Mikita peered through his binoculars after he tied the tourniquet onto a soldier that had fallen besides him wounded and ushering him away on the back of another man in his section, constantly wiping away at the lenses to get rid of the rain.

"Where the heck are our stovepipe boys?!" Mikita had yelled for the artillerymen, in contact with the heavy guns of the Missouri to put down hell. He didn't care if Ha Long Bay was having monster waves; he needed a volley of cannon fire.

The Captain had rushed back with the majority of the platoon to supplement positions on the north western part of the city, leaving the lieutenant with only Marx and Haven to hold the southern front with a handful of other broken platoons. The thrill of battle had taken hold over Mikita, a thrill unlike those he had when directing Pokémon battles. It was a high he would come to enjoy.

An artillery man had run up behind Mikita, just barely making it up the slippery slant as the three Deltas opened fired through the rain before return fire forced them back down again, another broken UNGA platoon picking up from their and unloading their ammo in a meticulous pattern that kept both sides suppressed in a game of cat and mouse played with automatic fire.

"I need the Mighty Mo to get me HE on that building laying fire on us at 11 o'clock!" He ordered, the artillery man getting out his instruments as they covered. The barrels of their guns were steaming, the raindrops hitting them evaporating as the steam headed in the opposite direction. The hospital had been a rallying point for the Reformers getting pushed back into Ha Long City in their sector, most of the troops in that map grid being called to push the Reformers back in. The urban fighting up until that point had weighed heavily on the momentum the UNGA harnessed during the battle, but the hospital had built up many firing positions and that momentum was brought to a stop as a monsoon rolled in, whether by the call of Pokémon or by nature.

"Sir that's a hospital, you sure you want to-"

"Yes, I'm confirming that order. We can't risk men clearing that thing room by room with this god damn monsoon going on." He struck down morality in that, the artillery man dropping his instrument and flicking open the channel to the Missouri on his radio. Mikita would've seen if he could've slept with ordering a salvo on a hospital, regardless of the wounded men inside. They were the enemy regardless of their state, and he wasn't walking on pleasantries in his first engagement, especially after his first one on one kill with the Reformer in the crater.

"Roger." The artillery man's hand went to either the phone or his ears, drowning out the sounds of rain and battle as he radioed into fire command. "Delta 1-XO wants a volley on the hospital in sector five-six. HE. Grid ES-244-344."

Mikita stopped his fire and brought what was left of his platoon down, four fingers rolling back in the rain signaling the rest of the men on the front to withdraw. They'd been danger close in their attempts to keep the Reformers pinned in one destroyable position, the other warrant officers and lieutenants taking the same cue.

The lieutenants had been mostly kin in Operator Fortune Soul; all of them part of Mikita's class at Vermillion. The initial stages of the battle seemed to have caught High Command off guard, the voraciousness of the new class exceeding prediction of both the limited Reformer military and the UNGA. Mikita's first few firefights were speedy, his first kills as an officer as easy as blinking. Delta had fallen in lock step with their officers, not giving the Reformers any time to put up any blocking maneuvers. Building by building, street by cobblestone street, they each fell within seconds until the momentum was stopped only by Mother Nature herself.

"Delta 1-2. Fire mission. Volley HE. Sector five-six. Grid ES-244-344." The Missouri's gunners reiterated the command.

"Roger. HE in effect." The artillery man confirmed the order.

Mikita had come forward and seized the radio, ushering the artilleryman to back off as he did as well. "Don't expect a response Missouri! Mark it as concentration bravo."

The mud under their boots splashed as they made a break for a piece of cover, stray helmets being picked up and slapped on as the distant thunder that wasn't nature's doing cut through the sky. Stone, bodies, and waves of brown flew into the air as the first rounds hit, 406mm rounds punching into the ground. The mud and the rain had been so thick that the usual red and orange explosion was muddled down as each massive round impacted the hospital and its general area. The UNGA soldiers who hadn't been able to get to a safe distance were swamped with the mud storm that had come from the shockwaves.

The volley flew through the sky, the white contrails of the shells piercing through the pouring sky visible from the coast all the way to their impact point in the middle of the hospital, it crumbling like a cookie by both rain and explosives.

"This ain't just fucking mud lieutenant!" The flow pushed through the streets, those who hadn't behind something were swept and pushed down. Grabbing blindly into the torrent at the vague outline of a slipping trooper, he had coincidently grabbed Marx, trying to anchor himself down by digging his LMG's bipod into the dirt. Mud had been caked in their hair and face, even as they tried to wipe them off with their palms it was no use, for their entire bodies were dirty.

"Talk about great floods eh Marx?" Haven had coyly commented, knee deep in the stream behind the wreck of a car that had sustained the torrent. Damp thuds of debris and bodies colliding had steeled their hearts as they waited out for the mud to settle.

* * *

They had been left wading through the freshly churned wetness of the street, the hospital completely obliterated and chunks of it having fallen to the ground level. The same had gone for the occupants of the building as well. The mud had come up to their thighs, the rain having kept coming and adding to the mulch, their steps forcing them to fully take in the situation as they pushed up in the aftermath.

Most of the platoons had taken position on rooftops and balconies above the ground, safe from the muck, but those who hadn't were stuck down there and forced to move on.

Those who had an over watch of the situation saved their ammo in selfishness, not killing the shell shocked Reformers trapped and half-buried in the mud unable to do anything as Delta, the point platoon in the circumstance, forced their way through the mud towards the remains of the hospital site.

"Double tap." Mikita ordered as they passed each yet to be killed Reformer, a twosome of shots being sent at their feet towards dying Reformers. "Don't think." Two five five sixers to the cranium would've killed anyone, that much Mikita didn't need to take the medical course to know, but it seemed cruel. ROE during that battle was strict though, no survivors as if it would've instilled fear in the populace and the Reformers that had fled before the UNGA mopped up, however it was always a question whether or not the soldiers would've upheld it.

Poking the head of a dazed Reformer with his barrel Mikita checked to see if the soldier was still alive, the body's twitch sending a reactionary two shots into the man's head, adding red to the brown of the mud sea around them. His throat gagged at the sight, his mind bloated out all the receptors that told him that he was doing a bad thing.

As an officer at the highest of his class, Mikita followed orders to an absolute during the crucible of training, and he was expected to set an example. Not even twenty yet, High Command thought it best for young men to be molded at such a young age, to set a pace for the army as a whole.

Reformers twisted and turned in an attempt to escape them as they slowly made their way forward. They could've been the reapers themselves, even as Marx had kept the good book out with one hand and a pistol in another.

"Through this holy anointing may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit." Marx said before he fired each time he came upon a Reformer, the rounds punctuating the final rites.

Where in Mikita and Haven hadn't even looked into the enemy's eyes as they killed, Marx had taken the hand of his enemy before putting a round into their skull.

"May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up." Salvation came in different forms for many people. If it had been as easy as putting a bullet in between your head and saying the magic words, Mikita would've considered it in Guyana and not by R Industries' hand.

* * *

Not every soldier had been able to escape the debris that scattered like shrapnel from the Mighty Mo's guns, a very large piece of stone having fallen and pinned a UNGA troop by his leg against the mud that had kept rising in the rain. He was going to be drowned in mud if nothing was done, the mud already up to his breast in his trapped position against the road.

Delta had tried pushing the block aside, the increasingly panicking soldier twisting and turning, the compression of the mud against his chest almost putting him into hyperventilation, but the strength of the four men had failed.

"Marx do not give this man final rites just yet, that's an order." Mikita yelled over the rain to the chaplain. "Can someone get the Tyranitar up here?"

"Negative LT, mud is too thick and all the forces are being diverted up to the north." Haven had answered, a good amount of the platoons having left and done so.

"God dammit."

"Get me outta here. Please!" The trapped soldier pleaded, his right leg being cut off by the knee under the rock.

"Come on lieutenant, we've either got this rock off or move or do something, command wants us to push forces north. Priority one directive." Marx had tuned into his radio, the secondary communications on the comms confirming such. That's how command had always worked, if it wasn't the officers on the ground pushing their men it was the unaware men in a cozy HQ building ordering offensives and fickle tactics.

"Shotgun surgeon…." Mikita remembered Marx's insult in that moment as he was cursing command, opening the breech and delicately taking out the shell that was in the chamber. He also remembered how cleanly the Reformer's arm had been sheared off by the shot. The man's leg was lost anyway, the crushing stone probably having destroyed the limb, so what Mikita was thinking wasn't going to be at all outlandish.

"Corporal, do you recognize that you are going to lose this leg if we get you out of here regardless of how we do it?" The man was a twenty something, still older than Mikita, but absolute trust was formed with the pain on his leg.

"Yes sir." He answered painfully.

"Want to do it dry?" Mikita took out a small syringe from his medical kit, the chemical compound numbing of the body when injected. Not ideal during combat, but it served to hold soldiers over until a medevac.

"Do what dry LT?" Haven asked, head up in the air taking in the wetness of the rain to clear his dry throat.

"We're blowing his leg off with the shotgun." Mikita had said blankly, loading one of the less powerful rounds into his sawed off Mossberg.

"What?!" The remaining soldiers in his platoon had all shared the same surprise. Of course Mikita had sounded ludicrous, but it was the religious man who had given him the idea. Using a knife wouldn't have worked with the limb already underneath the mud; only the gibbing shot of his 870 would've had a chance to separate the soldier from his prison.

The syringe had also worked as a sedative, Mikita jabbing the neck of the soldier before he could resist, Haven catching him before he sank underneath the brown water. Eyes rolled back and barely coherent, the gray barrel of the shotgun was poked through the mud until he felt the leg underneath it, up against the rock.

"You're basically gonna knee-cap the poor bastard?" Haven asked horrified, hugging the man's head and whispering reassurance into his ears.

"What choice do we have?" Mikita was too young to understand fully to consequences of hurting someone terribly and not end them out right. The Academy taught him that it was all right, as long as it was for the right reasons. For all Mikita cared, for this occasion it was

Marx had looked away, realizing it was he who had suggested it, holding his breath.

A hand went up shielded his own face while the other laid on the trigger, Haven apprehensively using both of his arms and wrapping the man's head securely, both men's eyes closed for the pain that would come as the platoon either looked away or stared mortified at their new XO.

"Fire in the hole!"

Mikita was so young then, so much responsibility and luggage to carry and to be carried. But he didn't mind. It was the life he chose for himself.

* * *

Mikita woke up panting, gasping for air as he fired the shotgun in his recollection of his part in Operation Fortune Soul. Eyes burning, unable to breathe in air, the reason being was because a Mankey was pissing on his face.

His pistol was too far away to grab so he settled for a rock to bludgeon the fuzzball of a monkey away as he spat and wiped his face off before swearing, springing up from the back of the tree and flailing as the Mankeys howled and leaped away on branches and vines.

His legs were slow to respond, fizzing with what he had just dreamt about, so he hadn't been able to tackle one of them before they escaped up into the trees. In the morning light, Mikita thought he had woken back up in Vietnam in the year of 2319, but as he looked down on a pair of old jeans and a beaten ballistic vest with bloodied arms, he remembered he was still in Guyana, six years after the fall of Ha Long and Hanoi.

The soldier was a young man from Kalos, a piano player who volunteered for war. As Mikita reassured him, walking with his wounded body on his back through the sludge of Ha Long, it wasn't the worst thing that could've happened to him. But a lie was a lie, and by the time the man came to with only one leg left, Delta and their new XO had continued on to the front, leaving a wake of suspicion and horrific details in the Siberian's wake in his attempt to avoid confrontation.

Guilt weighed the ex-officer down almost as much as the duty he had to his nation, but in Guyana, even with his service done for, the notoriety of and mistakes of both bad and good decisions twisted him.

* * *

A/N: Vietnam. 2319. Each war has its generations: The Lost, The Greatest, The Forgotten, The Drafted, The Volunteer...Mikita's generation? The Unforgiven and The Unforgiving.

Shout out to FF user Gholam. Appreciate a few sentences each chapter, feels good knowing the 80 or so views each time a chapter is posted is actually someone who cares and is willing to take some time from their day to read over my work.


	19. Chapter 15

Mikita could now have added AIDs to the things that could've possibly killed him. Or at least, he assumed. The Academy wasn't at all interested in seeing if the mutated monkeys of the world still carried some notable diseases, but still, Mikita assumed as he wiped down his face with dew soaked leaves. Mentally and vocally he cursed the forest for having literally pissed on him, the howl of the Mankey evident above him. Taunting him.

Every fiber of his being had wanted to draw the Ithaca and fire shot after shot into the leaves to do away with the monkeys that had woken him up and burned his face, even if they distracted him from the pain that still persisted from the engagement last night.

Mikita wasn't the sort that was quick to heal, jealousy over the soldiers that were brewing every time he had taken something more than a bullet to his body, but he had a hardiness that separated him from others. That was the advantage (or disadvantage) of going into the Academy at the youngest age that they allowed: At that age people tend to not have much built on their character, easy to break down and build up again.

Didn't mean he could tolerate his face being used as a urinal, let alone the popular conception that monkey's had thrown shit at would be travelers in these forests.

Muscle memory had him flick a finger next to the rock thinking it was a grenade with a pin, it being thrown up into the branch finally fending off the Mankey, unfortunately (at least in Mikita's mind) not exploding.

He had sworn the Academy had taught him much better control, but then again he had thought everything in the UNGA wrong when he was discharged.

Vermillion Academy was the only service academy left in the world, West Point and the Suvorov Military Schools blown to hell during the war. It was there any would be commissioned officer would be taught the art of war, changed from a civilian to a soldier, made a role model for brothers in arms around them. In the winter the cadets slept on rocks with no blankets, in the summer they trained for days against man and Pokémon. Two hundred stomach crunches, several hundred pushups, a few miles up and down the Kanto coast each day before their single meal was one of the easier things that were sustained by the cadets in that god forsaken place. Some days it was just stints of cadets beating the shit out of each other in a war game of survival of the fittest, the other days was telepathic torture against Pokémon capable of ESP, and unnervingly some days had simply been book work days.

The first years of his education were during his youth before ten. Pokémon Trainers typically forgo most vacations, even summer vacation, in order to cram in as many years of education as they can before becoming trainers. So essentially starting from pre-school all the way up to teenagerdom, elementary through high school was punched through children's mind if they were dead set on being a trainer. Of course if you wanted to be a trainer you had to be determined on doing that, so missing vacation and studying three times as hard as anyone else was gladly accepted by those students.

Even then he had been travelling with a granddaughter of a well-educated Gym Leader, whose mother was also the teacher of Fortree, so even after he embarked on his journey he never had the end of it until his first deployment to Vietnam.

Mikita wasn't a genius, especially with what he was doing right now, but he had foresight that others lacked, many officers not having gone through the training to be a trainer beforehand.

Probably one of the more memorable instructors at Vermillion was the local Gym Leader, one of his more preferred lessons was subjecting students to almost sadistic forms of shock torture while they had been training, forced to carryon while being shocked to the brink of seizures.

Surge was an American descendent to a T, monikers such as "Old Glory" and "The Lightning American" having been the names bestowed upon him in battle. So it was no surprise he had more than his fair share of fun with one of the only Slavs that had taken Vermillion on. Shocks to his arms during range evaluations threw off more shots than he was comfortable with, his muscles slacking so much that the runs afterwards were indescribably painful. Had he said anything about it though his entire class would've suffered from a shared disciplinary action for speaking up against a higher officer.

Those years of hell and suppressed anger had actually molded Mikita into a soldier to his surprise, finding himself barking out orders like Surge had to him. So he was immensely thankful for the ethnic discrimination, Surge meaning well by it, his class ring actually having been a thunder stone as a tongue in cheek tribute to one of his favorite mentors. During his handful of weeks in between tours he had visited Surge if only to keep himself sharp, even as he learned age had made him a little….loose in terms of self-control. He once heard how Surge had been only truly alive out on the battlefield, Pokémon battles being the substitute for him.

Perhaps that was another thing that had been given to him by the lieutenant.

Scabs had started to form that morning over his wounds, marring his already considerably scarred skin. Despite this it meant that his body was still healthy enough to cover up his mistakes, even though his breathing was heavy due to the battering that he had taken the night prior. The barrage of fire he had sustained from the Godfather's G36s the night before only stopped by the bulletproof vest he wore underneath his scrubs, which had a torn assortment of holes on its chest. Pain had flowed through his body unhindered with every injury, though after the immediate heat of the moment Mikita didn't mind. That is of course unless it had a lingering effect on him, the way his bones shifted in his momentarily dislocated arm annoying him beyond regard as he continued down the maintained patrol path the Godfathers had carved through Guyana's lush ground.

He didn't grab the G36s, they had been such an advance weapon that their usage in the tropical heat would've made them prone to jam and malfunction beyond the frequency Mikita was comfortable. Another reason was one habit that was hammered into every soldier that had gone through boot camp or the Academy: You never let go of your weapon, and the Ithaca and the M1917 were his.

His face had unpleasantly continued to sting after his mouth was used as a urinal, Mikita regretting having given away his pomegranates to the Nidos, the rest smashed in his pack due to the Nidoqueen charging him. His ammo and medical kit was soaked a shade of purple as he found out during the morning checks, his entire bag smelling of fruit unfortunately. Probably was the reason why the Mankey had found him was the fact he had smelled of the delicious juiced fruit.

The tree bark had served well enough as he chipped the white fibers off and into his mouth with the knife, getting rid of the acidic taste in exchange for the smoky stale one. Eating the white layers of tree bark was something he picked up as a Fortree native, and it made the trek more bearable to think of it as if he was once again a trainer lost in the Petalburg Woods or in Sinnoh's Eterna Forest, which he had resorted to eating tree bark for many reasons. For nearly a decade he had relied on vehicles for transportation across lands and battlefields abroad, but he hadn't forgotten all he had at one point in his life was sometimes a foldable bike and his own two feet to traverse entire regions bigger than Guyana.

Of course most of those times he was running for his life, an occasion of running through Iran away from Afghanistan coming back to haunt him…

As long as he hadn't thought about how hot, how humid, and how sticky the air around him was it was bearable. The real problem blatantly being the Godfathers. The situation with R Industries was really superficial. Like lily pads on the water, they didn't matter when he already was in deep.

* * *

"Flat terrain. High visibility. Ambush." He talked to himself looking out at the tan grass that only went to his hips, the next few kilometers or so comprised of nothing but a straight path through the rolling fields that dotted Guyana in the rainforests.

For a second he considered crawling through the field as if he knew there were snipers looking for him, but he remembered one thing that had been the ire of every trainer.

"Pokémon in the tall grass…" It was a simple fact of life that Pokémon had hid from humans in the tall grass, even the largest Tyranitar being able to escape the eye of a trainer in the brush if it knew what it was doing. The grass had been dried out surprisingly, the lighter and pack of cigarettes in his pack taunting him. One temptation was to light a stick up to settle his nerves. The other was the temptation to set fire to the entire field.

The rational officer in him had told him not to, such a flame would've drawn attention from miles around. The medic in him had also told him that a cigarette wasn't exactly going to increase his chance of a long life. Though against his better judgment he had started puffing and walked into the tall grass without a Pokémon of his own.

The shotgun was a suitable substitute though, it brushing the first few strands of grass out as he used it as a walking stick into the thick, the pistol in his other hand for added insurance in between letting the cigarette out from between his lips to breath. The brand of the smokes had been Torkoal Skin, as ashy as the breath of the Pokémon species and probably just as bad for his lungs as actual volcanic ash. Mikita wasn't a heavy smoker though, nor was he a heavy drinker, but as he had reasoned with himself time and time again, it was merely a distraction from the life he had been living. Smoking and drinking was a good alternative to going to war, Mikita somehow needing something trying to kill him at all times. It only added to the inner nagging Mikita's medical conscious put on himself among other things that the numbing effects of the cigarettes and alcohol would only suppress for a while.

Some days it was self-hate when he made the mistake of looking back, some days it was pride when he remembered the past, and most other days he was arrogant, ignoring both emotions like a good soldier should.

The ground beneath his feet was soft, a layer of crunched dry grass making his movements less than subtle, the bluish green of his scrubs not helping.

Progression then in the brush for Mikita was measured not in time or distance traveled, but by the amount of sticks that he burned through. The brush went on forever, the tree line on the other side impossibly far away even after the fifteenth stick.

After the first cigarette he forgot why he had smoked them out in the field in the first place, the reason being that whenever he spent one up he left one as a trail. The ruffle of grass behind him signified his mistake, his cigarette chewed between his molars as his pistol and shotgun came to be pointed back at the ruffle.

During his service he had seen his fair share of bullshit. Most of the times when it had been bullshit, it was comical either because someone was going to be killed over a silly mistake or comical because of how obscene it was. This occasion was bullshit because of how obscene it had been.

He knew Pokémon out here were scavengers, but then again he didn't think mostly spent cigarettes went under the criteria of poachable things.

That was why he let the cigarette he was smoking at that moment fall from his mouth when he saw the Raichu that had been trailing him for the last few kilometers in the depression he made collecting his fallen stubs, one of them being finished up by the electric mouse in between its fangs.

The Raichu had frozen when it saw two guns being pointed toward it, not anticipating for the ex-soldier to sense it, but Mikita's face had turned into a disapproving frown upon realizing what he had been seeing.

Glancing down, he didn't take a peek at his ammo, but rather the amount of cigarettes left in his pack.

"All you had to do was ask….?" His heel stubbed out the one that had fallen, his revolver put away as he picked out another fresh roll, shotgun still held up at the oversized electric rat. Mikita hadn't exactly been thrilled of shooting in the wide open field, the Godfathers would've probably known he was coming if the shotgun had been loud enough in the open field. So the alternative was making peace with the other locals, the Hoot-Hoot and Aipom having been testament to his relation to Guyana's Pokémon up to that point.

He held out the white stub, but the Raichu saw the movement differently, somehow thinking it was a tiny weapon. It felt like the energy had been sucked out of the air as the Raichu tucked in its arms and its tail coiled, cheeks sparking in less than a second as Mikita tightened his chest in response.

"Hey!" He pumped the Ithaca, the held out cigarette now in between the fingers of the hand that gripped the pump.

"Make a move and I blast you." The Raichu hadn't understood the words that fell from his mouth, half coughing as he forgot to breathe out the last puff from his smoke fully. The body movement was fully understandable though, enough that the charge was held as Mikita started to back off from the standoff, holding his breath.

Every step back he took, the Raichu stepped forward, Mikita still stubbornly holding the gun up as the cheeks continued to fizzle and the tension began to heat up in the same manner.

Mikita didn't have enough ammo to waste on a single rodent, especially one that had been scavenging his spent smokes for what tobacco remained. He didn't also want to risk setting the entire dry field alight given the fact the sparks from the Raichu could've done so. Mikita didn't trust in his ability to outrun a brushfire, especially when he wasn't able to keep an eye on what was directly behind him as he moved backward through the brush.

"What the hell do you want?" Mikita bargained. "This?" He flicked the cigarette in between his fingers at the Raichu, startling it for a second just before it landed, cheeks ready to discharge toward Mikita. However the lightning didn't fall as it landed on the dry ground without incident, the Raichu reaching down at picking it up, the same paw rubbing against itself and sparking the stick. The surgeon general told Mikita to order his men to not give the Pokémon smokes in breaks, but of course he wasn't going to tell that Raichu tailing him that as it gave the full stick an experimental puff.

* * *

Mikita considered offering the Raichu a bottle of rubbing alcohol as well in an attempt to kill it, but he didn't move his hand from the Ithaca until the Raichu simply got bored and ran off with its scavenged smokes into the forest that flanked the field, Mikita letting out a weak breath brought upon by the smokes.

For a second, he wondered why the Raichu had taken so many, following the electric rat's trail by impulse. Of course the answer came from back in the day, whenever Mikita had a pack he was expected to share amongst the platoon even if he was a higher officer. The Raichu had a clan, and Raichu and Pikachu bred like rabbits out of a lack of better words.

Judging by the fact that most of the Pokémon hadn't ganged up to kill him, he thought he was actually fulfilling that "hearts and minds" portion of being a soldier in other countries when he was conveniently not a soldier. But because of that, he figured he could get the local populace to help him.

That was of course, coming from a lesson of Cold War tactics: Why fight a war when you can get the locals to do it for you? The lesson very prevalent in South America during the Cold War as he had learned in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, the Soviets funding drug trading that supplied the pro-socialist rebels.

Of course Mikita wanted allies more than anything in that would be war to steal back Dreamstone, but all he really needed was a set of directions, a finger pointed hopefully towards a river that led south into the Amazon toward Wellington. Mikita was like a gun with that, just point and shoot.

* * *

A/N: Short chapter. Smoking is bad, right?


	20. Chapter 16

"Nein." The word for no in German, totally foreign to Cortex's ears. Usually he would've still been on the trails back to The Well, their home deep in the Guyanese jungle, but circumstances had him pick up speed all the way back. The air control tower that remained despite the time and place had been the temporary headquarters for their guest, obviously at home among the rusted pieces of black equipment that had once been used by America's military. In fact some of the equipment had somehow been turned back on after being a quick shock by a Luxray and some fiddling with wires, even as the Godfathers hadn't been successful.

"I don't think it's possible that there's a regular grunt out there Godfather. This is a black operation." The foreigners that had amassed in the air control tower had all dressed heavy in their armor, though the Major General had excused himself from dress code on base and instead only wore his fatigues, popped collar and sleeves rolled up.

"There was a tag on him, German."

At that moment a radio operator had put in his two cents, willing to take his CO's rebuttal about butting in. "And we did get an authorization code from the listening post immediately after the Godfathers retreated. We could get an inquiry if there are any active units in this hemisphere and take a headcount. You know how deserters are in the South Pacific."

"That was before I butchered them private. If there's a UNGA lone wolf out there I would've known beforehand. All assets are on freeze asides from us in the Americas." The Major General had shut his chiming radio man down with his iron tongue, sending him back to his duties.

"I don't care whether or not you believe it Major General. I lost three quarters of my party out there." Cortex pointed a stubby finger at the Major General, accusation not having much effect on the steadfast German.

"But you secured the package didn't you?" Dreamstone had been hanging, cuffed at Cortex's side. The Major General had tried to take advantage of Cortex's lack of eyesight, inching closer and moving one arm down to grab it, though he shot back, startling the Major General as the personal guards on both sides tensed. The deal was simple: acquire the Dreamstone in return for mint arms and supplies fresh off the rack. But it had complicated with the death of Cortex's men.

"My man power has significantly dropped off."

"Your Pokémon can compensate."

"We do not send our children to die for us." The Major General hand came down again, intent on seizing the black steel case that had held his goal, but Cortex didn't move this time, only the guns that he had delivered to the Godfathers being raised up boldly to the surprise of the Major General's guards.

"We expect for blood loss to be repaid in blood spilled. You will not get our first child without killing that man. Whether or not you believe he's out there, I do not care."

Glocks, AR-15s, M9s, AKMs, RPG-7s, SPAS-12s, Mossberg 590s, Ma Deuces, RPKs, M60s, _Degtyaryova-Shpagina Krupnokalibernys, _AA-12s, Remington 700s. What looked like a warlord's Christmas list was the in fact the supply manifest of the countless of crates brought into the Wellington's hangers that had gone unused for centuries. Men with black balaclavas and a tiger print camouflage had instructed Cortex's legion on the operation of each weapon with military discipline.

At first his men had been unwelcoming to the men in black, the "Valkyries" as their patches on their arms had said, however after the first beat down they learned to respect. It was a common way to do things in those parts. Men cannot beat men into submission, or break them as they do Pokémon. You break a man by not being one, but by facading as a monster or a demon.

It's not so different than getting soldiers to respect you; the problem with doing that though is to not descend into being something that isn't human.

The head dresses of gold and feathers that the Godfathers wore were befitting of their name, making them seem larger than life. Gods over their children. A caring hand when warranted, a deadly fist when needed. Of course .50BMG was useful in disciplining the older, larger children. Hence why the Valkyries were allowed on base, their helmets decorated with white wings, every movement of theirs cool and calculated as if meant to impose a threat.

Cortex could read body movement, much more than even the best of those who studied body language because of his…mutation. In the way they walked, the Valkyries were holding something in, the aura of each of them far more savage than his own men. It was also one of the reasons why the soldier who had ambushed them and killed so many of them had been undoubtedly one of them; he carried the same life force in his wake.

Cortex did his rounds around The Well, making sure that the men were conditioned and the Pokémon tamed. Normally the Legionnaires they hired would've been here but they had been driven off the base with the arrival of the Valkyries, there was no need for their training or their backwash weapons with them here.

His destination was the staging area that they had provided for the Valkyries, they having also set up what they call a forward operating post a few miles east of The Well. Most of the Valkyries that weren't in touch with them had set up there, their helicopters stored in The Well's old hangers. It was the first time The Well had been set up as an airbase again, unnervingly, the aircraft that the Americans had stored there never got the chance to lift off, but American designed craft had returned centuries later.

The men that had rode those steel horses in had agreed to take out the renegade soldier, for they wanted the first child badly, and right now it was in the secure grip of Cortex's hand, never leaving until the deal was complete. His bodyguard had held onto that arm as well, steering Cortex through the base avoiding the new equipment spread out on the base as they made their way to a group of soldiers that were immediately tasked with a new assignment of fulfilling Cortex's demand. He personally wanted to "see" them off.

"These men are not normal, brother." His guide commentated, even if he didn't see aura, he knew something was abnormal about them.

"I know. They're not regular. They do not have their own souls; it's almost as if they were created, not born." Cortex had said, running his hands over where his eye sockets would've been.

"Shouldn't we be purging them then?"

"While they are still useful? Nonsense. Soldiers exist to be used, so why deny them that?"

* * *

A platoon was made up of twenty soldiers, and there were six platoons within the company that made up the Valkyries in their deployment in Guyana. Only one was needed to kill off a single target, as was Army protocol during HVT takedowns, but to put on a show for the tribals of modern military might, three of the platoons were geared up and combat ready. Normally the Valkyries would have already been deployed with this objective, Rangers as they were, they led the way. But Godfather number one had preferred to observe them leave, and they obliged at the request of the Major General.

They had face paint in the same fashion of the Godfathers, but their green and black strokes across their faces were hardly the same type of red and orange that painted the faces of the tribals.

Compared to the Godfathers, they had been of the same build, of the same ferocity, but in a different way.

Short, sharp orders were bellowed by the CO of each deployed platoon, each soldier looking straight ahead and barking out affirmatives as they stood in the sun baking. The rock Cortex had taken on top of to see the sea of life before him had made him feel great, powerful, to be above such horrible men doing his will. But if he had full sight, he would've seen the scowls amongst the ranks, the lust of war not aimed at Cortex's nameless soldier, but at the Godfathers as a whole, them withholding what they had wanted.

It didn't matter to Cortex though, all he saw as war, his long arms outstretched to the sky as if drawing in all the life in the area, looking straight at the sun unbothered.

War existed before man, as steadfast as the rock Cortex stood on as each of the Valkyries disappeared into the hills in separate directions, but to rule war as Cortex had intended, it was an illusion that he could not peer through.

The Major General peered down on his dissipating ranks from the control tower, above the Godfather leader basking in the sun, unknowing of how his guide hadn't laughed at the silly site.

Silently, he thought while twirling his index finger around his moustache, flattening his fatigues as he got radio reports from each of his captains moving out.

The Godfathers were dangerous, but only because almost no one and nothing in the area challenged them, they had yet to actually prove themselves in combat as the report on them said, and they barely were anything compared to the already unimpressive combat effectiveness of the Reformers that still remained in South Vietnam.

He had briefly considered wiping them out, but the area was going to be resettled in the future. The future he envisioned of course. So it was worth moving out in force to mark points in the region for troop deployments later.

When they did resettle Guyana and the general portion of South America, the Godfathers would remain, keeping the UNGA in existence just that much longer with another need. With Dreamstone in the Major General's hands, he might see it come into fruition, Pokémon being eliminated due to the research bred from the crystalline stone and its cargo.

They could preach about their godliness, the Major General didn't care much as much as it annoyed him. Where were their marvels of engineering? Voyages of discovery? When all men had walked and dressed how they did, it was the Major General's ancestors that reigned supreme. It was his blood right as an Aryan and he understood that, not some old tale that savages and skinnies had convinced themselves was true.

"How's the firebase coming along?" He asked, expecting an answer, not caring which of the dozen control staff and radio operators answered.

"FOB Delta is coming along smoothly Major General, ETA is within the evening."

"Good. We won't be getting anything else from High Command until this op is done. With what the skinnies are doing to us we'll be here for at least a week or so, and we sure as hell aren't bunking with them."

"What're we going to do with the Pokémon downstairs? They were never part of the deal."

"We're not those kind of Rangers private. The parameters of Operation Short Leash isn't for the beneficiary of Pokémon."

* * *

a/n: Sometimes the line break for this site acts like a little bitch, so the "-" will be used occasionally. Anyway, I pulled the Nazi card.


	21. Chapter 17: Vietnam

Dossiers were always fun to read. When Giovanni had once held a lower position in R Industries and even when he was merely just a member of the board, he had to recruit and pick out his assistants. The reading material was good fun, all the pros and cons of a man or woman before him, and he had to decide how the dossier ended: with either their employment or their continued unemployment.

The reaction that came from Blaine was different though. He already knew the history, or at least some of it, of Mikita Tolya Noelle.

The small, bespectacled eyes were blank as he set the military folder down, bothered, disturbed, and almost nostalgic as his hands cupped around his drink as Giovanni raised an eye brow.

"Something interesting Blaine?" The man asked, back dropped by his office's usually violet hue of city lights and the night.

"Was there a reason why Archer withheld this young man's name?"

"I believe it really wasn't mission imperative."

"I know this boy Giovanni."

* * *

_In the midst of Operation Fortune Soul, it was D-Day plus six for Delta Company. Noelle's platoon was Delta 1, and as such they were at the front of the battle, pushing toward Hanoi. The constant whine of jet engines and helicopters above them ruffled the canopy incessantly, the sound of gun fire no longer making the 2__nd__ lieutenant piss or flinch in his clothes, now up against the temporary perimeter trench._

_ Vietnam looked a lot like Guyana, the rain forest of both countries impeding movement of those who fought in it, but like Les Padrinos the Vietcong and the Reformers knew the territory like the back of their hands._

_ Casualties started mounting, and the advance was slowed, leaving Delta to fortify their positions in the night to hold._

_ What little bed time reading he got in during Fortune Soul, it was over the men under him and the Captain's command._

_ As Mikita ducked down, his M16 jammed due to the mud and moistness of Vietnam. Covey's M40 rifle was good though, the more analog action of it surviving and keeping the distant Vietcong pinned down as Crowe and his Espeon kept some sort of safeguard around the section of the trench._

_ His back was caked with wet mud, dirt digging into his combat trousers as he sat exhausted in the momentary safety of the defensive line, the controlled chaos of soldiers moving back and forth in front of him distracting the constant head ache of his mind._

_ "You hit LT?" Covey asked, pulling the metal bolt back after he fired the last round, sitting right next to Mikita in the makeshift wooden platform within the trench._

_ Mikita patted himself down just in case. "Nyet. No." He tried pulling the slide of his AR15, but the almost rusty and gritty resistance it offered failed to feed another round._

_ Crowe was having a field day, black Shadow Balls being sent down range, peppering the forest in which the enemy hid not much more than a few feet in front of them, engrossed in battle as most trainers had taken as second nature._

_ "Going to head back to the FOB then for another rifle?" Covey asked calmly, despite the white tracers crossing above their heads, the rattle of another explosion ignored as Mikita stared blankly into the sky, rifle in between his knees, helmet skewered._

_ "I guess… We aren't going to get anything before sun down you know?" The new 2__nd__ lieutenant's grimacing was understood, Covey poking the inside of his devilish face with his tongue before hanging his head back, intentionally getting his already dirty brown hair imprinted with more mud._

_ Mikita didn't read the bio of his civilian life, but his training was all he really cared about in the battlefield of Vietnam. Clarick was trained a scout sniper, a pinpoint marksman that lived with offing targets more than a mile out. However he was a rowdy, if not a sexually active, trainee and he was kicked out three quarters through the course after somehow doing something fairly severe to a 'lady' in the span of a one hour leave._

_ He had enough skills to join the regular troops as a DMR, and he enjoyed it seeing as he and Haven were friends long before the military and promptly ended up within the same unit._

_ The man (The entire company for that matter) was older than him, so Mikita mentally made a note to put a good few feet between him and Covey in the showers and to do something if the ass pats got a bit too gropey._

_ Haven had remarked that the two of them were a double act: the joker and the thief. Apparently Covey had been the thief._

_ The yellow notepad Covey used for distance measurements was flipped open, and he went to work with the yellow pencil which had miraculously never disappeared._

_ Mikita would've asked about it, but another Delta fireteam had piled into the section which Delta 1 was supposed to cover. _

_ "Lieutenant Noelle." The sergeant of the fireteam shook hands with the new XO, worriedly glancing down at Mikita's bloodied shotgun which was held on a thigh holster._

_ Mikita had somehow known the last name of every one in his unit after a single meeting. "Sergeant Keller, you my relief this evening?"_

_ "Yes sir." The sergeant's sweaty face was distorted by the falling light. In the darkness, the Vietcong intensified their attacks, not boding well to those on night watch. Mikita worried for a second, but orders were orders and he was to report back to the FOB back at the outskirts of Ha Long, which wasn't more than one or two dismal miles out._

_ The only sympathy Mikita could give was the rest of his ammo for his AR-15, his training at the Academy having recognized it didn't matter if he thought someone was going to die._

_ 'Everyone dies.' Mikita less than bitterly though, climbing out of the trench and then onto his belly prone, having been relieved for the moment, crawling his way out of the immediate threat zone._

* * *

"Yes, yes." Blaine hurriedly said. "I knew him as a gifted trainer when he was twelve."

Mikita's gym badges were all sitting in a small leather case in the inner pocket of his travelling jacket that was collecting dust in his unused room back home in Fortree, the sets mismatched, not one league entirely complete. Blaine's was the first badge he got in Kanto.

"Really?" Giovanni's interest was piqued. "I didn't find anything in the records."

"He traveled with a girl, I probably registered the victory under one name and it was probably her's. They both outsmarted me actually." Defeat to Blaine was classically just another learning experience.

"His Pokémon were trained very well, it only took two from his party to down me." The Staraptor was the opening act, the winds which it had whipped up sending the fire from Blaine's own Pokémon back at them. Eventually both the trainer and the Staraptor had slipped and a swift and fiery flash of fire from his Arcanine took the bird out. Blaine knew the battle lost, Mikita's team filled out with six Pokémon extinct and exotic to Kanto, but he gave the young boy a run for his money as he used his Milotic against the disadvantaged Arcanine.

"He likes a challenge. He had a Pokémon that would've murdered my own real easy but he didn't use it at first…" The girl was even a worse loss for him, her Altaria massacring the match. The Staraptor and the Altaria had been a very rare sight, the two almost extinct, even in their own regions. The potency of the bond between them and their trainers was perhaps one of the reasons why Blaine had justified is part in _Rebirth._

"What does that mean in regards to us Blaine?"

"It means we shouldn't be too worried. I saw the fire in Mikita, that certain yearning… I heard from Surge that he was in the Academy, and he was very much in a very fitting education course."

"Does that mean he knows any other gym leaders?"

"Probably, but the fact might not hold vice versa. I know that Misty's family had him over for a swim once or twice. Sabrina knows him well, as does Brawly in Dewford and especially one of the retired leaders in Fortree. I think Winona was her name, the grandmother of the girl he traveled with." The rambling of the elder man was revealing in some way, Mikita already being peculiar, even before his training. Giovanni had his presumptions, that people like Mikita had lived not to fight, but lived only in the fight, but further employment was becoming increasingly tempting to the CEO.

"The girl's name was Valentina if you want to bribe some more league officials for another search, another once over won't be that bad if you're curious."

* * *

_The FOB was fortified, the traffic in and out of it frantic in the midst of the battle not more than a few miles out, Mikita returning with a group of soldiers being rotated out for the shift._

_ He kept silent, every time a crack of a bullet was heard menacingly close, the hand around his shotgun made the freshmen troops around him worry more than the actual gunshot._

_ The gravel and dirt road underneath his boots were cushioned by the soaked socks he wore, further reminder to stop by the supply tent to reacquisition a fresh set of everything._

_ Clothes, ammo, food, miscellaneous knick knacks that pleased the troops anyway on the front line had come through the supply lines, mailed to the troops from home. As an officer Mikita was able to cut through the line that extended well past the open tent, it the size of a football field, and to the kiosk for requisitions._

_ "There anything for me?" He asked the tense, and also injured, desk sergeant. Everyone had seen action before being the UNGA infrastructure was taken up._

_ "Name and rank." The desk sergeant didn't look up, reviewing his supply manifest._

_"Mikita Tolya Noelle. 2__nd__ Lieutenant. __2319. Delta Company, 38__th__ Infantry Battalion, 2__nd__ Regular Infantry Regiment."_

_ The supply sergeant made the mistake of the looking up directly into Mikita's eyes, looking back down to both hide and verify. He shook his head in the negative._

_ Mikita didn't wait to request what he really wanted. "How many full length shotguns we got?"_

_ "A good few dozen, mostly for the MPs: Ithacas and Mossbergs."_

_ "Get this on the line to the armory then: One 590, up to spec, folding stock and a heat shield." The sergeant noted it down, passing over the slip of paper onto his desk, an Abra flicking in and out of the air for just a second to take the order._

_ "Anything else?"_

_ "Ammo of course, but I've got enough for now. I'll be back after I go man the hospital for a few hours." Mikita fumbled with his storied breaching shotgun, wanting it gone, tossing it on the table. He learned later that the shotgun was being played up as some war trophy within the battalion, and he was surprised when the Captain got it back nearly four years later during an outing in the Philippines the rusty splotches of blood from the nameless Viet-Reformer still etched in. _

_ Taken aback for a second the shotgun was pushed aside for a minute, Mikita finished._

"_Of course Lieutenant Noelle." The desk sergeant answered, but by the time he looked p recording the request, the Siberian was gone._

_He didn't bother discarding most of his gear as he walked into the medical tent, adding only a white and red armband over his arm to denote his secondary profession as a medic. _

_It was hardly the most sanitary of environments, but Mikita blew up the only hospital within Ha Long with his artillery strike, the soccer fields that sat next to each other was the center of the FOB and thus also where the hospital was situated due to its flatness._

_His hands and body were on automatic, helping people finally instead of killing._

_Staples applied, biofoam and gel spread and squirted, stiches tightened and closed, the occasional rib and bone broke to be set and strengthened with casts and splints, it was good work._

_The actions of his mind were so automated, it only took Tuga Marx's hands to bring him out._

_The chaplain was injured, a bullet being taken to the knee and thus relegating him back in the tent._

"_Calm down sir."_

"_Ah." Mikita struggled for a second, picking up the clipboard denoting the former Spanish priest's treatment._

"_Bullet passed above and to the left of the knee and through the thigh, exited entirely…" He lifted the sheets for a second to verify the correct treatment, a set of staples and stitches and with the appropriate medicine applied to the surrounding area._

"_How are you doing Father Marx?" The lieutenant stammered on the name, trying to figure out if that was correct in terms of military rank to title of faith. Marx looked up, but only to look past him._

_A gloved hand sat onto the young XO's shoulder._

"_He's doing just fine. He's a bit hazy due to the medication, but just fine. Shame, a few people here could use some final rites read." The Captain had carried Marx back, the two sharing a unanimous bond as veterans that never wanted to be. The Captain was an ex-con, or rather a to be convicted con if he went back civilian, something he had been avoiding for a good two decades or so. Marx had pissed off some religious mafia types and suffered the same fate, albeit in only the last ten years._

"_Situation report?" Mikita snapped his heels together before grabbing both hands behind his back as he answered._

"_Our section of the trench line has held for the entire shift due to Private Covey's marksmanship and Crowe's use of his Espeon to shield themselves from incoming fire."_

"_Observations?"_

"_At the current rate of advance maybe we'll get to Hanoi in three or so weeks, even with Pokémon such as Espy being able to ID targets, the forest is always living, too many things to pick out." His voice had given way to the Slavic tint in the last few words, taking a breath, but the Captain's flick of his eyebrows told him it was alright for him to continue in his own voice instead of the false American one._

"_The M16s and M4s we were issued are finicky at best in this environment, they work back in the Central Regions or on the coasts, but here in the mud it's another issue." Most of the weapons that were used in the world were either a. Kalashnikovs or b. prototypes or designs from the nations in the Cold War. The AR-15s fell under the latter from the Americans and NATO states. The story was the same up and down the front, but orders were being put through to Tokyo Marui and spare rifles were being sent from Unova._

_Marx's hand rose up to the sky through the sage tent's roof, ebbing in the evening wind._

"_The angels are coming."_

_Marx wasn't going to die, the monitors hooked up to him said nothing of it, the psychic Pokémon who could tell not glancing over._

"_But he's not-" _

"_Not for him." The Captain stopped Mikita, already turned to the entrance flaps where a squad was coming through._

_White guys, iron helmets, a steel aura the Captain detected around them. The smudge of a white design on each of their helmets differentiated them from the regular Rangers that were present._

_The Captain put on a scowl as he held his head down, those who weren't busy with a patient going over to regard them._

_There were Reformers in the room, being treated despite their status as combatants, the duality of UNGA combat ethics frightening. Of course they tried their best to kill everyone, but the rats that remained some took pity on and treated._

_One by one, these survivors were picked up by the new group despite how badly wounded they were, the flash of a red arm band and the unmistakable design of the ancient Sanskrit symbol for peace, strength, and good luck revealed to Mikita who they were without a second guess._

_The Academy trained him to identify all the current active units and all the famous historical ones of the UNGA and also of armies of the past. From the Japanese Special Attacks Unit to Washington's Continental Army, he could identify the names if he had a reference. In this case it was the swastika of Asian tradition instead of its fabled use by Nazi Germany in the Second World War._

"_The 26__th__ UNGA Ranger Battalion." Mikita spurt out. "The Valkyries."_

_The Captain tilted his head in Mikita's direction, listening to the written answer in which he had given in that particular benchmark test._

"_The 26__th__ is a UNGA Ranger Battalion often deployed in the heaviest combat zones at the time. Both frontline and expeditionary actions are played out by the 26__th__ under the command of Major General Carmine Karabin; inclusion into the unit is very selective." The answer was a barely passable one, but it passed._

"_I'd be impressed if I didn't already know Noelle."_

"_What?"_

"_What do you know about the process to get into the unit?" The Captain asked, testing his freshly graduated XO._

"_Was never educated in that." Mikita answered, not bothering to beat around the bush. One by one, the Viets and Reformers were forced out of the tent at gun point, some bleeding, some still connected to IV bags._

"_It's very political. Karabin chooses each of his men personally; they go through the screening, only those who agree with him."_

"_What does that mean?"_

"_He's bullshitting us with that Swastika. It's not the shit for peace, it's a middle finger to us and a homage to his ancestors."_

_Nazism was rampant in the post-war world. Project Odessa had bred the survivors of Germany and planted them throughout the world, prep to take hold after an all too convenient nuclear fire. They were suppressed for a while, not taken seriously as the talks to form the UNG started cultivating. To them it was their opportunity for a Fourth Reich._

_Of course if it didn't work once it wouldn't work again, but the Pokémon Crisis changed everything. They changed their wordings, the politics of it slightly more favorable. The Master Race was preferable to no human race at all, so they got some traction, but not enough to make any real difference. They existed; they always did, chiming off on every issue, a thorn in the side of whatever politics existed. Some called them bigots and racists; other heralded them as the Master Race. _

_Mikita didn't like Nazis, one thing he was sure that was due to his blood, but he knew where he stood on the food chain and didn't make a fuss about it._

_Mikita's eyebrows flickered as he was hit with a guess that was worth saying aloud._

"_You tried getting in?"_

_The Captain nodded, Marx falling asleep behind him as they kept silent, the Valks passing by them and forcing a Viet without an arm out of bed and out of the tent. Some protested, but they didn't listen, and only gestured threateningly._

_It made Mikita put on a scowl of his own._

"_You didn't make the cut?" Mikita asked._

_The Captain only patted at the katana on his belt, and then to Mikita's throat and tongue._

_He was an Asian, which didn't fit Karabin's vision at all. Mikita was a Russian, which anyone could tell by the glint in his eyes and the growl in his words, and Russians were never a Nazi's friend if history was anything to denote. How fickle and disgusting it was, it existed only because the UNG didn't want to get political with the Army. It was a Pandora's Box, and with the Nazis contained to only a seat or two in the smaller committees, it was just fine to push aside._

_He didn't know what happened to the Viet-Reformers, but they were marched out, and every time they did he heard a blast of gunshots jarringly close. Everyone in the room knew what was going down, and the mass grave Mikita uncovered next to the city wall verified as such._

_One thing that Mikita didn't know was that the Valks were called upon for Black Ops when the actual Special Operations Group was busy. The operations log was impressive, especially since Karabin sought his own agenda:_

_Novaya Zemlya to recover the last and largest nuclear weapon ever made._

_Groom Lake, America to recover stolen Nazi property and prototype blueprints._

_Ethiopia to investigate rumors of the Ark of the Covenant existing within the ruins of old places of worship._

_The last operation Mikita would ever know of was the one that complicated his situation in Guyana._

* * *

A/N: Vacation was alright, cleared my head. I went back and redid some of the earlier chapters, might be worth a once over.


	22. Chapter 18: Afghanistan

Being a tracker was very easy, most people from Fortree were and brought up to in order to get dinner, chase away the rowdy Absol, or protect the precious farmland at the outskirts of town.

Fortree was a "city". City of trees more like it, each one of the larger pines being hallowed out at the bottom, strengthened, and filled out with basic shops and houses up until the very top of the trees, which then turned into platforms where most of the population spent the day away from the ground. Connecting each platform were zip lines or rickety wooden bridges. The less experienced had carried harnesses to hook onto the zip lines, especially trainers that came from abroad and visitors. However the locals and the more daring just simply swung onto the zip lines without a second though, some jumping from platform to platform with no difficulty.

So ground level tracking was nothing to Mikita, the vines that had accumulated on the forest floor not even tripping him as he followed the Raichu back to whatever home it had. Ash and dropped stubs left a trail that Mikita followed, and his body was on autopilot through the brush, his mind shifting to another time.

He'd been remembering a lot, possibly because walking through the forest he had been bored out of his mind. The bihourly updates to Archer were horrible in a way, reminding him of what progress he wasn't making, but Mikita's propensity for entertaining himself was low, the only thing that he could do was to swirl around the 1917 absent mindedly. His hands were always at work, always doing something, a habit bred from childhood. Picking at his fingers, checking over for wounds and errors on his attire, throwing his Pokéballs back and forth between his hands…Idle hands were the Devil's workshop, and he wasn't certainly going to let him take advantage of him in that regard.

'As if it matters.' Mikita had bitterly thought in regards to that, he had his one way ticket to Hell and he would have to catch the trip at a to be determined date, but some of his now late enemies wouldn't accompany him he'd imagine. They saw redemption down the barrel of a gun.

* * *

_Afghanistan was a very common destination for S&D missions, those deployments usually lasting thirty days or so before being called back and redeployed somewhere else._

_ Immediately after the Battle of Hanoi, Mikita and his company had been deployed to the desert region, North Vietnam being mostly under control. Seeing as the newest officers had been proven in battle High Command spread them out throughout the world where needed._

_ It was a nice change of pace. Instead of being shot by splinter government and its rag tag troopers, he was being shot by rag headed locals and their Pokémon._

_ A stream of gritty dust that would've torn the skin from an unprotected man was shot at them, Mikita taking it full force before being knocked down on his ass and being dragged into cover. The tradeoff though was one of the insurgents having his skull knocked off with a single round of buckshot, the rest of his body being peppered as it hit the faceless man's clothing. The body of the Sandslash that the stream of sand came from was peppered as well as it stood shocked by its master's death._

_ It was a typical search and destroy deployment: Get dropped off in an area of operations and search out for insurgent or terrorist resources or personnel. Return to the FOB if in need of medevac or ammo. It was a simple routine, unless of course there was no specific directive, and in that case Mikita had to quote a famous German general in the Second World War: "In the absence of orders, go find something and kill it."_

_ An old palace built by some Afghani royalty that had become run down following the war had been the site of that firefight Delta fireteam 1-2 had taken part in that day. It had become a supply and staging point for would be insurgents trying to resist UNGA authority._

_ Needless to say it would've become their graves._

_ "Espy reads six tangos on the floors directly above us, two across on the far side." Crowe spat out as he took cover, providing information from his Pokémon on the amount of insurgents currently bearing down on them, having been caught on the ground level of a small courtyard._

_ "Rog'! Haven, get the 40 mike mike on those across on us, Crowe get grenades ready and toss 'em above, Marx cover us!" Mikita's fingers pointed out, only after he sent two shots from his Mossberg down range in return fire._

_"Aye!" They all yelled, Marx cutting down the cover of the two insurgents wildly firing down towards them. The crack of each bullet above the two insurgents forced them down, giving Haven ample time to chamber a grenade in his GP-30 and slide to a firing position._

_ "Fire in the hole!" The Irish rifleman let the grenade loose, it hitting the roof just above the two insurgents splattering them with the once expensive roofing. The insurgents that had taken to the floor above them had anticipated them to move out to the center, keeping quiet, but the Espeon Crowe had picked them up, the two flicking away the pins of their M67s as they held the spherical objects for a second. Of course Mikita chose Crowe because he had the arm, both of them having been Pokémon trainers. The long second they held it allowed the fuse to progress far enough for the grenades to explode in the tribal's faces, which they had as they were tossed up over the ornate railing._

_ The combination of wood and ivory rained down on the two, a single body of one of those insurgents being blown forward and onto the ground._

_ With a slap of his Pecheneg's lid and a pull of its bolt Marx had been ready to open fire again as Crowe and Haven cleared the room, scanning three sixty degrees before yelling out that it had been safe. The smallish courtyard had been the entrance to the palace as a whole, and palace had been quite large. Big enough that it required the entire Delta platoon to clear._

_ "Haven, go back out to the yard and keep overwatch till the Captain gets here, I'm radioing the rest of them here." Mikita ordered as he rechecked his magazines, wandering over to the body that had fallen._

_ "Aye, aye Lieutenant Mandibuzz." Haven had sneered, running out before Mikita could've kicked his ass. The khakis and the office shirt that this insurgent wore had been stuffed with ammo, the only real personal item being the money in his back pocket. The UNGA had used an offshoot of the original Japanese yen either in hard cash or in credits. Trainers often carried credits in their trainer IDs as opposed to carrying the bills, not wanting the weight of money to hold them down in their travels. It was the only currency accepted in areas that accepted UNG governance, either that or hard objects such as diamonds, pearls, platinum, or in special cases which he had found Covey partaking in from time to time: recreational drugs._

_ Indeed most of the area had been farms of the sort, whether it had been corn or weed. That was why the UNG wanted this area back under control for both agricultural uses and to control the potheads. Of course the UNG picked its territories, not wanting to control the entire world again so quickly. _

_ Gradually the UNG would spread out when it needed to, not because it could. The UNG originally comprised of Jordan, Ireland, Portugal, parts of the Philippines, and of course the head of those former nations: Japan. Very gradually these pockets of the UNG started to reach out in their respective areas, but only when their current borders were secure, which was a problem in Jordan especially. All those former nations were in the UNG because they alone had survived the Third World War, each of them giving its contributions to the new world. Jordan had its weapons research, Ireland had its alcohol, Portugal and Spain had provided faith to some degree, the Philippines provided invaluable deployment bases up and down the Pacific, and Japan provided the technology and organization._

_ Of course there were other, smaller assets the UNG had assimilated such as Chinese troops and the US Pacific Fleet, but those were the only true nations to survive the war, the rest being wiped off the map._

_ "Oi, you're not at all being modest sir." Crowe had pressed in front of his lieutenant, Marx doing to the same to his rear, covering the officer. Mikita had checked every pocket and cranny of the corpse, sticking his own hands into even the back pockets. Shrapnel had ruined the upper half of this middle aged man's body, the bleeding having started as Mikita finished up, pocketing only a few 7.62 rounds for their AKs. Each deployment they were equipped with different weapons as per the region, usually based on availability. Thanks to the Soviets this area had been littered with AKs._

_ "It helps to be thorough." Mikita had said, taking the magazine in his unused AK to thumb in those scavenged rounds._

_ "My last LT never approved of patting down dead bodies." Marx had sheepishly said as he replaced Mikita over the body. It was a bit late for the chaplain to administer final rites, but this man had clearly been of the wrong faith, the graffiti that had been all over the sandy town below the palace speaking that this particular insurgent group was an Islamic affair._

_ "Well your last LT wasn't also a combat medic. Trust me, I know what close and personal is Sergeant Marx." He had patted the Mossberg that always hung at his side._

_ Delta was a thrown together platoon in a thrown together company. Large offensive campaigns were few and far between, the need for actual battalions and divisions outside of defensive, mostly local, actions sparse. But after Hanoi High Command had stuck most of the units together, the new officers of the year 2319 out of Vermillion using their education fine enough._

_ Mikita didn't mind the nature of their formation; it only meant he had a broad talent pool to draw from in the field._

_ "I'll be honest; you really break tradition Lieutenant Noelle. But you got us through 'Nam damned well. Hell, you and the Captain did most of the work." Crowe held his head back as he recounted the campaign that happened only a few weeks ago, trading in their jungle gear for desert kits, Crowe already familiar with the humid tropics as a native of Australia's colonies. His light brown body took in all the sun's rays, he offering his shadow to his resting Espeon, having stayed silent. The Espeon as Mikita had learned in dull moments even in combat, had been judging him with its psychic powers, the gem on its head particularly dark when it had been aimed at him. It, or rather she, didn't like him._

_ Crowe was another case though, having offered his fist to Mikita in the low compliment, the two sharing a fist bump just before the doors leading to inside the palace were banged upon, foreign gibberish being heard on the other end. _

_ Mikita threw up a V with his fingers, non-verbally saying two tangos after only hearing two voices._

_ Marx had thrown himself on the broken ground quickly, waving off the three others with a hand. Mikita knew the chaplain could've done it single handedly with his PK machine gun, dragging Crowe and his Espeon to the wall where the door was._

_ The doors flew open, but they were quickly sent back on its hinges in the other direction, riddled with bullets from the PK as splinters went flying. The insurgents had seen Marx just in time, falling back on the other side of the wall away from the hail of fire._

_ Marx's fires slowed down to bursts, only intent on keeping the two pinned down._

_ Noelle's hand waved Marx off, the automatic gunner dashing off to cover, the same hand returning to order Crowe to subdue the two instead of killing._

_ They came thundering through the double doors as if they owned the place; however the Espeon put a wall in front of them as the rushed toward where they thought Marx was. The invisible wall had stopped just steps from the door._

_ They grabbed the arms first, twisting their hands and forcing them to drops their weapons as Marx reappeared and covered them as they threw the two insurgents to the ground, dragging them behind Marx._

_ The two men wrestled, however they had been pinned face down, whatever worming they could do only making Mikita and Crowe push the barrels of their guns deeper into their backs._

_ Marx had yelled at them to stop resisting; however they couldn't after Mikita personally kicked their feet in, the breaking of bones immobilizing them._

* * *

_ Mikita was always the chief interrogator within Delta platoon, ripping the hair out of each of the local insurgents that his fireteam captured running downed the time of the session to only three minutes. The info taken was short and sweet: "Yes, we are using this old beat to shit palace to hold our guns that kill UNGA servicemen, there are eighty rooms that you have to bust ass to clear, and yes, we are sons of bitches and you can off us."_

_ The Captain didn't ask why there had been two bald insurgents hanging from their feet on a wire rack just out front in the entrance, but he asked why he had summoned all twenty Deltas to the palace entrance._

_ "We could use this as a very forward FOB if we clear it out. Three sixty degree viewpoints over the villages around. Worst case scenario they come to us instead of us going to them, I think that's how most of the UNGA prefers it." Mikita had hurriedly said, teams reorganizing and refitting._

_ "Say again lieutenant?" The Captain asked._

_ Mikita clucked his tongue before answering, scanning the area around him, gauging how much time he could take to explain. "I know why we lose so many troops here, sir. In fact the UNGA High Command knows as well, that's why they taught my class as they did."_

_ The Captain crossed his arms at the new bred soldier, his one inch height advantage hardly threatening the younger man._

_ "Then what's the problem?"_

_ "You were taught defensively. That's all the old officers and soldiers were taught. Not me though, most of the XOs during Vietnam were the same breed, why do you think we won?"_

_ The Captain sucked in his mouth in concentration, his thin eyebrows furrowing as he studied the man not even half his age. His XO talked in his falsified plain accent, his real one suppressed as he got his point across. The point in question was sounding slightly questioning to his authority. _

_ The CO thought the generations under him would've been lacking for soldiers and individuals to fight wars, however his fears were not founded with the new class of officers that Mikita had come from. But it wasn't what he was suspecting. When he closed his eyes and concentrated, he saw the particular aura around his new XO, as per his tightly played down mutation._

_ The Godfathers were mutants, though mostly in a subtle sense bar Cortex's sense of sight. Many people who lived in the irradiated countries of old and dealt with radioactive objects often suffered a similar fate as the now extinct animals of the twentieth century. The Captain's family was one of those affected. When he killed a woman and brought to the station to be questioned as a young man, he said he saw that she was a 'bad' person. To what extent no one would understand but him or the collectively extinct Lucario species. Whenever he closed his eyes and concentrated, he saw puffy clouds and silhouettes of life, different shades of the living as defined by what he could only identify as a soul. It was just strong enough to give him headaches when he used it. He and Karabin weren't that different, but perhaps Karabin had few more mutations in his mind than the Captain._

_ The first time he used it look over his new LT it was that day in the Afghani sun. He shut his eyes behind his goggles, forehead scrunched as head hung low as Mikita stood rigid, unquestioning, having seen his medical report._

_ It wasn't necessarily a bad type of life force, nor was it a good, people hardly tend to heavily weigh in one direction or the other, but it was peculiar. Grey, set in stone, young, cruel…_

_ His eyes snapped open with a click, avoiding a major headache as he pursued verbally. "What does that mean Noelle?"_

_ "Well, sir, it means that you guys regard self-preservation, collateral damage, and casualties as things to factor in. I don't."_

_ "I thought those were things that every human thought of in a high regard."_

_ "And that's why I'm different. I'm not above it really, I was just taught to ignore it."_

_ "I'll take your word for it lieutenant. Now you said eighty plus rooms?"_

_ "Affirmative. Probably the reason why they're not taking us out as we stand here is because they're too busy trying to hide the stuff inside, and in a place this big we might be standing on an arms cache that'll supply a battalion maybe. Don't quote me on that in the report though."_

_ "Duly noted. You know the drill then, keep with your fireteams and clear the building. Rally point is the entrance courtyard. Got that?"_

_ "Yes sir."_

_ Before Mikita turned away the Captain took him by the chin, tightening his helmet's strap before running his rawhide like hand over the sandblasted scars on the helmet. Mikita never kept his headgear on straight every time the Captain had checked, it was something he used to rile his men about, but Mikita was the youngest there. To the Captain, to the entire platoon, he was still a kid._

_ "When's your birthday Noelle?" The Captain asked before he turned back to the squad, who had been dicking around with two captives._

_ "December twenty-sixth." It had been October when they deployed for S&D ops in Afghanistan, Mikita's birthday not more than month or so away. Their rotation in the unit started when they invaded Vietnam at the beginning of September, so it was no secret that he was going to spend his birthday abroad._

_ "You'll be nineteen Noelle?"_

_ Mikita held onto his Kalashnikov, holding it a bit more rigid across his chest in a little bit of youthful pride. The date of his birthday paired well with the last name that his parent's 'accidently' signed onto the documents._

_Mikita, for a moment, smiled. "Yes sir." _

"_Make sure you live to see it."_

_ "Yes sir."_

* * *

_ The entire twenty being there, they split up into four groups of five, adding one more man to each fireteam. Ideally it was twenty rooms per team before they called up High Command for a request to establish an FOB in the palace. _

_ The first breach and clears had confirmed that there were many insurgents, only the stupidest or the most foolhardy of the fighters staying to engage Delta. It was a common trend wherever the UNGA went, thinning out immediate resistance, but unfortunately having more and more would be insurgents within the society as a whole._

_ Along with the insurgents there were the arms caches of course, not even the usually suicidal terrorists considering blowing them up._

_ Covey had been tacked onto Mikita's fireteam, volunteering to be with his apparent battle buddy Haven. Asides from that Marx and Crowe stayed as Delta split off._

_ Mikita's shotgun had blown a hole through the doorknob, the rest of the squad piling through and clearing their sectors as the smell of very old chlorine came through._

_ "Masks on." Mikita ordered as he followed through, loading another shell into his Mossberg._

_ "I was dreaming about going for a swim earlier to'ay." Haven's commentary was light hearted as usual, Mikita's fireteam having breached into what had been the recreational part of the palace, a moderate Olympic sized pool before them. Haven was as amiable a guy you could get in the military, but his lighthearted attitude covered up his profession and past. He was a good soldier, if not a traumatized one to some evidence in his mostly blacked out dossier._

_ The Olympics were still a thing even after the war, only one city in Johto hosted it though, and it had been a combination of Pokémon and human events. Despite this, Mikita in his critical thinking knew that whatever had been underneath the brown muck of what had been clear water wasn't training itself to compete, the rest of the fireteam putting their backs to the wall as they saw the same wake and bubbles from an underwater threat._

_ "I thought you were hydrophobic George." Covey remarked as he cleared a round in his M14, making sure he was ready for whatever happened._

_ "It's clearly just a few feet of water you old sod."_

_ "You're afraid of water corporal?" Mikita had asked as he waved his arms slowly, spreading the team out._

_ "To some degree." Everyman feared death in that fireteam though, trotting slowly around the pool, guns aimed at the hidden living object underneath the black sludge of the pool._

_ Like the three other rooms they had cleared before that, there were arms in it. Unlike the previous rooms though, there was no living insurgents, the dead ones in their current ones having been bitten in half or snapped in multiple pieces. The reflective wall had been smudged by the red, the bodies obviously having been thrashed about._

_ "Crowe, what does Espy say?" Covey asked as he closed the circle, the five men on all four corners of the pool._

_ "Call me stereotypical, but I think it's a croc." The red beam from a Pokéball had been shot at Crowe's Espeon, knowing that it had been a tad bit too dangerous for the rather delicate creature. Why Crowe had even considered bringing the damned Eeveelution along was lost on most people, but Mikita knew some of the reasoning behind it, having been a trainer. The Espeon disappeared before it could resist, Crowe kicking a stray bullet into the pool with the poor, unsaid justification that all Australians knew how to deal with crocodiles._

_ The bubbles that strayed to the top of the dirty much picked up pace, the sound of them popping followed by a low growl._

_ "Alligator." Mikita remarked as he kicked one of the bodies into the pool, the bite marks grisly, but almost unmistakable in its pattern. "Feraligatr."_

_ "Makes sense, the bodies, territorial things they are."_

_ "How much shit are we in LT?" Haven asked, not even peering over the edge as the rest of the squad did. Of course the others had peered in through the sights of their weapons. The very vague outline of a very large reptile confirmed their fears._

_ Mikita ignored the question, flipping through the mental guidelines hammered into him by training._

_ "Invasive species here, you know the drill." Even though invasive species were still a problem, it was a questionable ethic to apply such a term to Pokémon when they had been the bastardized forms of the original animals of the Earth. Had it been any earlier the UNGA was merely just trying its very best to wipe out all of the mutants; but nowadays the "invasive species" excuse worked well with society at large having already conformed around Pokémon._

_ Marx was set with his LMG, but the rest of the team lacking any necessary firepower. The Feraligatr was getting more and more peeved at the sound and presence of the UNGA soldiers, the first of its back spikes rising above water._

_ "Covey, your .308 is alright. Crowe, Haven, prime grenades." Mikita's shotgun poked forward in one arm, three M67's over the pool waiting for the command as they all got the message. They weren't counting on the shrapnel, but rather the shockwave to put the Feraligatr on their terms. Through the gentle nods of their XO, they threw their grenades in._

* * *

_ "What do you not get about containment Noelle?!" The Captain had yelled at him through his radio, Mikita's fireteam pushing through a hole in the wall the now loose Feraligatr made._

_ "We kill invasive species so that we may contain Pokémon, not cut them loose!"_

_ "Sorry, sir! We're on top of the situation just now." The Feraligatr had taken a full burst for Marx's LMG, bleeding not seeming to do anything to the oversized lizard as it raged throughout the palace. Covey had a rib that needed to be reset after he had foolishly tried to step in the gator's way, but he hobbled alongside the fireteam, still keeping pace as they passed room after room in chase._

_ The Feraligatr knew it was in trouble if it stopped, the inertia of its charge unstoppable, ancient walls unable to hold it._

_ "At least that thing is cleaning up the Taliban for us." Haven had stopped for a short second to observe a master bedroom that a handful of the insurgents had taken shelter in from the UNGA, all of them either knocked out our killed, unfortunate enough to be in the Pokémon's way._

_ The blood trail laid above all the debris, boots crunching on the ground in pursuit as they passed both confused Deltas and insurgents. The Feraligatr was always five rooms ahead, dust in its wake obscuring it until it had hit the more strongly built outside wall of the palace._

_ The Deltas' own inertia betrayed them as they hurtled toward the beast, jaw open and spitting old blood and spit as it roared. Their combat boot's heels dug into the rubble as their guns raised, the Feraligatr seeing the threat and instead dashing into another wall horizontal from them._

_ Covey had been a two year veteran, his sharp aim relegating him to designated marksman. He had the mind to match his aim as well, dashing in front of Delta to the last room in the straight, swinging his aim around to the Feraligatr while it still hadn't had its unstoppable inertia._

_ The M14 let out three rounds, the loud gunshots of the designated marksman rifle indoors just as powerful as the shots._

_ Mikita had slid onto the ground, his shooting knee resting on a disoriented insurgent as the rest of the squad came up, a firing line established as the Feraligatr disappeared further into the building._

_ Mikita's knee crushed the airway of the trapped insurgent, the rest of the squad swearing as it became clear the Feraligatr had gotten away._

_ "Fucking spectacular, we let a god damn dinosaur loose in a several hundred year old palace, mad as hell for making a splash in its shittastic puddle." Haven cocked back his AK, releasing a round in his anger as Mikita angrily rubbed his temples, helmet being thrown into a wall._

_ Distantly through the stone of the palace, they heard the roars and the rubble being thrown up by the Feraligatr raising up hell on both ends of the UNGA-Taliban side._

_ "That Pokémon could clear the place all by itself you know." Crowe nodded at Marx's comment, collapsing on his backside in his fatigue._

_ "You think the thing is scared LT?" Crowe asked as he leaned on a wall, reloading his weapon as he patted Covey's back in some reconciliation of his efforts to down the Pokémon. He had hit it three times, but none had hit its spine, and instead a larger red line was left in the Feraligatr's wake._

_ "It doesn't matter sergeant, we're not supposed to care if that thing is and we don't have the resources to sedate it." Mikita answered roughly, palming the insurgent's eyes closed as he patted down the body habitually._

_ An old metallic sphere came out, the top of it having a screw as if to prime it. An old model Pokéball, before the modern renovations. With a few shakes it was revealed nothing was in it, nothing captured with its confines. His first souvenir of war had been plucked and placed in the gap between his vest and body armor where he usually kept dog tags of the dead or stray bullets. _

_ "The only reason why you need a Pokéball in these parts is to contain a Pokémon too big for whips and Kalashnikovs." Crowe said, patting down his combat vest, making sure his own Pokéballs were still there._

_ "Clearly." Mikita had responded, two fingers dipping into the thick, deep hue of red that was left by the wounds leaving a perfect trail. At eight years old he remembered when Fortree's resident hunters had to track a pregnant Stantler that was cut loose from the Safari Zone, fearful of it leaving offspring in a foreign land in a typical invasive species scenario. The trail they followed to catch it was by blood, and it was the logical thing that Mikita was going to do. _

_ "Crowe, with me." Mikita barked, spitting to clear his mouth. "Marx, take Haven and Covey up and down this path of destruction, clean up any of the insurgents and pick up any of our boys that got caught up in this._

_ "Rog'" Marx affirmed the order, leading the two other soldiers out as Crowe hauled the relatively new LT onto his feet. _

_ The entire building had been cleared either by order or by Feraligatr, the Feraligatr smelling out the Taliban which had been bothering it for clearly more than it had liked. How had an amphibian ended out in the middle of a desert was anyone's guess if they cared enough to take one. Pokémon trading had been one, if not the most plausible, reason why the oversized and mutated gator was thrashing about in the now torn up palace._

_ Perhaps the insurgents had thought the Pokémon to be a weapon they could use. Indeed it had been a weapon, but it was a double edged sword at that._

* * *

_"You're the first hundred percent Russian I've seen lieutenant." Crowe had rumbled in his refined Australian voice, poking the barrel of his gun at Mikita's Shashka. Each sword was unique to each officer, special requests for those who could afford it. It was Vermillion's secondary class ring, a more useful one at that. Some blades were super refined by master swordsmen in Kanto, some hilts decorated with gems and evolutionary stones by the more wealthy officers._

_ Mikita wasn't a wealthy man, nor was his family, but tuition to Vermillion was paid by the UNGA in full. His sword was simple, the blade mostly straight, the hilt barely decorated with a black ribbon and swirls in the bronze. One specification that he did request was to have no hand guard, the loose feel of it nice if it ever came down to swordplay. In the field though the young lieutenant had come to enjoy the feel of a pump gun more than other weapons, his favorite arm now the left with every pump of a shotgun._

_ Crowe had a .44 scavenged in the arms caches, Mikita himself taking a 23mm shotgun._

_ "Really?" Mikita asked as he thumbed the oversized rounds into the tube._

_ "It's hard to find purebreds." For a brief moment, Mikita held a scowl on his face, but the sounds of thrashing in some distance corner of the palace distracted him._

_ Those eighty rooms that Delta was slated to clear was done by the Feraligatr, now presenting a perhaps even more daunting challenge to the UNGA._

_ "You ever been big game hunting Crowe?" The lieutenant asked, stepping into the blood line that the Feraligatr left, following it at a brisk pace. There was no need to hurry with the Pokémon doing his job for him. Mikita chose Crowe out of everyone else for something they shared, both of them being trainers at one point in their relatively young lives._

_ "I was too busy challenging gyms for that sort of stuff when I was your age."_

_ "Why'd you stop?"_

_ "Bad luck." The way Crowe had said it made the two stop, the oldest trainer kicking at the debris on the ground. Crowe had tattoos on his right arm, what Mikita originally thought were names of UNGA comrades lost were not at all. He realized now that the names had been too….unique for any human. They had been crossed out, a single quote stenciled in next to the six names made Mikita feel pity for the first time, trainer to trainer._

_ "Vsey moyey lyubvi k davno." Mikita repeated the phrase in Russian._

_ Crowe nodded, understanding just the slightest. "I didn't lose them out here in the field." He said, going back to his own past._

_ "I was a young trainer, from ten to twenty, traveled far and wide."_

_ "To be the very best that there ever was?" Mikita reiterated an old slogan that the old Pokémon Trainer guides had used to get aspiring trainers hyped enough to be one._

_ "What else?" They both shared a chuckle, the sound of a burst of gunfire followed by a ghastly scream silenced by the breaking of bones filling in the silence._

_ "Espy here is the only one left." Mikita felt the tip of his mind fizzle, the Academy training telling him to automatically cloud his mind with an onslaught of thoughts. The Espeon in question had remained in its ball, but still, it reached out and attempted to observe Mikita's mind. The first time that sort of thing had happened to him was when a gym leader had done so without his permission to peer into both his and his travel partner's mind, connecting thoughts, memories…feelings. The outcome was…favorable at best, but the damage it could've done had been potentially wrecking. Mikita's mental resistance was high, refined by torture tests in the Academy, high enough that he alarmed Crowe enough to tell Espy to stop by a rough shake of his kit._

_ "How did you-?"_

_ "Torture testing was one of the main things we did in the Academy. They beat us, broke us, got into our heads and fucked with us. Took a spoon and emptied out all that who we were." To Crowe, the explanation was heavy enough, but the way Mikita said it had a hint of fondness, of some fierce masochistic pleasure. Psychic types were never his forte; he disliked them almost as much as Delta-Tangos, Dragon types, but it was a necessary evil that he had to associate with them at the Academy. How easy it was to lose his mind or to use the mind of another, to let a psychic Pokémon access to his head was something he didn't want to happen again._

_ "That doesn't sound like officer's training."_

_ "I keep hearing the Captain say this thing to me behind my back: 'I was taught to kill.' Well of course I was, they never told us that we were special until a few days before we graduated, but we learned many things as well, for the better I guess. My medical training for example; officers don't usually know how to act as a corpsman, and the regular officer's training below that was the easy part."_

_ "Easy part?! I hardly considered becoming an officer at all easy, even with my ten year experience of Pokémon training."_

_ "I'm a young guy sergeant. I learn quick." The 2__nd__ lieutenant thought the conversation done, walking forward, following the red blood trail once again, but Crowe stayed back trapped in the thought processes of his mind. Trainers often took long moments to decide courses of actions._

_ "Learning and doing are two different things LT."_

_ Mikita glanced back for a fleeting second, smiling almost. "Well, I learn through experience, come on, we've got a Whisky-Tango to track down."_

* * *

_ Two fingers pointed in the hole in the wall followed by a thumbs down accompanied by Crowe's teeth making a chomping motion had meant that they had come upon the Feraligatr. His Espeon had been silently released, tail flicking, gem on its head pulsing for a battle._

_ The red blood had thinned out and leaded into the old room._

_ The Feraligatr had been resting in the light of the broken ceiling, the room a small dungeon that had been on the upper levels. The bloodied claws of the Feraligatr glistened in the Afghani sun, Mikita regretting tossing away his helmet, keeping his grievances silent._

_ Mikita's hand imitated a pop, silently signaling for flashbang grenades, taking his own out as Crowe imitated. The thumbs were looped by the pins once again; however the metal sound of the fuse priming was enough for the Feraligatr to spring from its rest, a torrent of water shot in their direction._

_ The Espeon reacted quick, throwing up an invisible shield that stopped the ploom from destroying the wall._

_ The water came in from all the cracks in the old wall, but the more pressing issue were the grenades that were primed in their hands. The heat of the moment made it so their hands were unable to place the pin back in, however the Espeon had been pulling both their weight as it continued to protect them, telekinetically taking the two grenades and sealing them within a psychic bubble, exploding harmlessly._

_ For a brief second, Mikita wore the face of genuine surprise mixed with bewilderment at Crowe, but he didn't care when the Feraligatr followed its own blue stream into the shield wall with a thud. The Espeon held on long enough to push the Feraligatr back, its high pitched whines giving out as the shield broke and the Feraligatr tumbled back._

_ Crowe followed behind Mikita as they funneled through the now slick doorway, the white froth on the ground propelling them forward._

_ The 23mm buckshot shell exploded in the KS-23, sending the oversized load into the rough yellow stomach of the Feraligatr. The Feraligatr reacted, lower body flexing as the buckshot amazingly bounced off, the entire mass recoiling and sent back to wall on the opposite side._

_ The shotgun was rusty; rusty enough that Mikita wasn't able to chamber another round before the Feraligatr pulled back and swiped at his legs with its claws. The material and the hardened material covering his shins stopped the swipe just barely from touching his flesh, though it dragged, slipping Mikita up onto the stone and wood floor as the Feraligatr jaws opened, hoping to get a chunk of the man's foot._

_ Crowe's .44 blasted the tip of the gator's nose, a piece of flesh and bone missing as the Feraligatr closed its jaws in reactionary pain, Mikita straightening his shotgun on the ground and finally pumping it. His foot tapped the freshly shot nose, enough force sending the Feraligatr away as Crowe came up and hauled Mikita by his collar upright. The Espeon sent a rainbow colored beam around the two soldiers, keeping the Feraligatr down with an energy filled blow._

_ The feet of the Feraligatr finally found purchase though, the same beam drying up the area it passed over with its energy. Its toes dug in as it reached out to the two men once again, this time landing a punch across Mikita's plate carriers with its claws. Crowe's .44 marked the Feraligatr's body to no avail, the raw skin too much for even the magnum rounds._

_ The claws dragged on Mikita once again, spinning him away as the shotgun finally was pumped, the claws going for Crowe as the Espeon bit down on the Feraligatr's ankles with little effect._

_ The three blue and bony claws wrapped around Crowe as he went for his knife, held up against the iron bars as the Feraligatr tightened its grip around the man's neck, digging into his throat._

_ The claw remained, but disembodied from its elbow as the 23mm buckshot hit the weak spot. Crowe dropped to the ground as he tore at his neck, trying to release the grip the disconnected arm still had._

_ The Feraligatr roared, almost piercing through the two soldier's ear protection as it swung at Mikita with its half gone arm. The exposed bone and tendons smacked against Mikita's forehead, nearly knocking him out as he tumbled back, shotgun dropped as his head's blood mixed with the spurting gator's._

_ Crowe gave up with the disembodied arm, joining his Pokémon at the legs of the beast. Kicking its rugged legs the Espeon was kicked off, hitting the stone wall and falling unconscious as Crowe held on, knife jabbing into its feet._

_ Mikita really didn't have a plan when he thought about dealing with the loose gator, all he knew was that it needed to be dead and he would somehow do something that made it happen._

_ The Australian was basically dragged across the stone floor, thrown around like a ragdoll as he held onto its knees, it stumbling out into the destroyed hallway as it ignored all the pain._

_ Dazed, the lieutenant felt for the grip of his sword, stumbling up and drawing it, beads of water having made its way into the sheath and soaking it._

_ "Christ! LT Help!" No matter how many times Crowe stuck the knife into the monster's toe it wouldn't stop moving away from Mikita, slowly picking up speed._

_ The buildup yell by Mikita as he swung the sword alerted the Feraligatr, its remaining fist being cloaked with water and swung behind. The water had seemingly bee made solid, parrying the blade away._

_ Another swing, another wet parry that splattered the immediate area with "water"._

_ The Feraligatr shot a pulse of water from its mouth, splattering Mikita onto the floor, jumping on top of the lieutenant, jaws open._

_ "Mudaaakk!" The jaws were around his head, but before they could close Mikita's sword pinned the two parts of the mouth together, sword upright in the mouth as he pushed forward and reversed the position, pure adrenaline fueling him, his hair slick with fluid. The sword had been caught in the center of the mouth, the blade pushing slowly inward as Crowe scrambled away._

_ Its mouth had been split in two as the blade pushed forward, the screams coming from the throat as it yelped in pain. Mikita looked into its eyes, but the Feraligatr's eyes were instead focused on the blade increasingly nearing to them._

_ They were lucky to have caught the Feraligatr already exhausted after killing so many insurgents, but it didn't matter. The only unfair fight was the one you lost, and as the sword met the space in between the monster's eyes, it was clear who had been on unfair terms. The skull was tough, but it was brittle for reasons Mikita would discover, but didn't care about, later._

_ Excruciatingly slow, the sword came to a stop as the Feraligatr swung at him with its remaining arm with another liquid filled burst._

_ The lieutenant latched on again though, grasping the middle of the Feraligatr, his arms wrapped around trying to get purchase for the tip of the sword to be pulled into the flesh._

_ Crowe had his voice knocked out of him as he tried to find feeling in his body after being tossed, but he was too late to warn the lieutenant of the death roll the Feraligatr fell into. The weight of the Feraligatr broke the wooden floor, almost suicidal in its twisting and turning all the way down, trying to get the lieutenant on the bottom as part of its jaw fell off._

_ The blur of brown mud and splintered wood accompanied by the feeling of gravity came next, the floor collapsing underneath the Feraligatr's thrashing._

_ The Feraligatr fell first, hitting the ground first, the force of the landing sending the hilt of the sword right into the right side of its back. The sword pushed through the Feraligatr, the sharp blade coming through on the other end and entering Mikita's chest. It pinned the two beings together, the death roll continuing as splotches of blood in the plain room they landed in started flying. The irony of his own sword hooking in the fibers and flesh of his own body a painful event as the Feraligatr thrashed itself against the walls. Mikita clung onto life and also unwillingly the Feraligatr as his fingers tumbled for his duty pistol, eye shut, face to face with a half jawed Pokémon. Crowe had floated down through the hole with his now conscious Espeon's assistance, jumping on the Feraligatr's back and yanking the sword out and away._

_ Mikita was running on pain, falling on his back as the Feraligatr swept away Crowe with another backhand, the Espeon ripping out its hanging tendons before it had taken a Hydro Pump._

_ With each drop of blood the Feraligatr lost, it swayed and begun to die slowly. But it didn't fall soon enough. The blood had seemed to melt through the lieutenant's armor, his palm exploring the damage, the sword making a fine flesh wound across his chest, the nerves stinging as he ran his fingers over it. The sight of his own blood was something Mikita was going to get used to later, the bloodied palm going for his Shashka as the Feraligatr moved what remained of its shredded foot to above Crowe's downed body, intent on smashing him._

_ His body acted for him, dashing up with his sword, the Feraligatr occupied with one final kill. The spikes that went up and down its spine had been overgrown and well weathered, Mikita aiming in between them to kill it._

_ The slight tug of the bone severing and the nerves being slashed was all Mikita needed to keep hacking away._

* * *

Mikita's head felt dizzy, eyes and chest painfully hurting as he cut through some vines that the Raichu had disappeared into to some other destination, Mikita still following it.

He caught himself thinking about the past as he continued on, trying to find a future in Guyana. Hours had passed by in reality as his mind transported him to the past. As if his mind had been subject to a "memory link", some almost spiritual affliction that Mikita hadn't thought real. Flashbacks came and went before he realized what happened, taunting him when his mind wandered from the present. The medical professional in Mikita writ it off as some form of PTSD, the deadbeat ex-soldier he was told him that it was perfectly okay to keep as some punishment that he deserved.

* * *

_He placed Crowe's missing teeth into one of the empty pistol magazine holders on his rig, the man still unconscious as the medic in Mikita applied some medigel and flesh weave onto the cuts and marks on his head, the man also ending up with a few ribs that needed to be set and a foot as well. _

_ The Espeon hadn't fared that much better, it had temporarily drowned in the Feraligatr's attack, but it came back alive for the sake of Crowe, it having limped to its trainer's side as it looked over Mikita with wary. Mikita's bleeding face had said that he wouldn't do anything to the ex-trainer. The face of the Espeon said it didn't trust him. Crowe's face had been beaten to shit; the man's poorly shaved face having chalks of his own crimson stuck in even after the drenching attacks by the Feraligatr._

_ Still, the Feraligatr didn't have a face after his sword had done its toll as the Captain remarked, walking over to give back his Shashka after inspecting it, placing it into its sheath for him._

_ "You make that shit look easy Noelle." The Feraligatr's back had been ribbons of red and blue, the carcass being returned to the pool with the rest of the insurgents it killed. The smell of burning gasoline had covered up the flesh._

_ The cotton swabs dived into Crowe's mouth as Mikita cleaned it up, closing up the empty roots of his mouth with the medigel. "The education paid off."_

_ The Captain was momentarily offended; roughly running his gritty gloves painfully over Mikita's soaking head as he simply laughed it off._

_ "We've called in High Command and we're about to set up this place as an FOB. Good call Noelle."_

_ The Captain walked away to the front of the building, waiting for the FOB supplies to come through, leaving Mikita in the makeshift medical area._

_ There were a few enemy survivors from the Feraligatr's wrath, only one other Delta being treated other than Crowe. The IV bags were adjusted for the more badly wounded as he made his round, refreshing medicine and bandages where he saw fit._

_ The flesh wound he had was treated by pain pills and morphine, the young medic and officer not trusting anyone to stitch him up just yet. A tight bandage had instead been thrown across it, which had sufficed for the moment. In a few years' time the open cut would've closed up with Mikita's sporadic care and leave a rough patch roughly above his sternum. It was his first true physical scar, one that he hid under several inches of clothing and armor._

_ "Chicks love scars LT." The other Delta with a shattered leg had groaned as Mikita tightened the splint. _

_ "If you say so corporal." As time went on, battle scars didn't have the romanticism that the old soldiers and the media had promised, remaining only as ugly remnants of mistakes made out in the field. Some not always physically shown of course, more drilled into the mind and soul after letting a man die in the filth of a Fiorre sewer in Mikita's case._

* * *

_a/n: Flashbacks: The story. I'm a bit worried that i'll lose a lot of content if I get to a point in this story's narrative too soon, but I'm struggling to write in a few more points of characterization and past building for Archer and Mikita effectively. I do intend for the flashbacks to jump back and forth in points of time, varying on the subject of those flashbacks, but I'll expand on the order of Mikita's deployments later. Read, review._


	23. Chapter 19

Water coolers weren't where the Rocket executives met during the precious minutes where they weren't needed. Mr. Silph had outfitted the building of his namesake with all sorts of unusual and often uneconomically sound facilities which Giovanni had always argued against, but hadn't spent enough effort to actually get them removed.

Proton and Archer had always met around this time on Wednesdays in the Sports bar, one puffed on Torkoal cigars, the other sipped at whisky against a backdrop of Pokémon battles and soccer matches. Proton had been a long time executive, long enough that his pay grade was about twenty times of the newest junior executive. An American greaser, he didn't fall under the gangster life that Petrel had once led and instead became a pseudo business hit man, a would be politician who was able to get his hands dirty when warranted. Though Arianna had the tongue, it was Proton who was behind the scenes, pulling the puppet strings of the smaller departments "unaffiliated" with Rocket while also sliding by UNG regulations via loopholes and bribes.

He taught Archer where he could. He taught him how lead grunts and how to kiss Giovanni's ass, and that was as valuable as Dreamstone in days such as the ones they were living in.

The bar was manned by a Gardevoir strangely, one of only a dozen or so remaining in the world, almost depressingly blank faced as it mentally used its powers to keep the facility clean. It was the handiwork of Giovanni of course, R Industries having an almost unheard of code of using Pokémon in labor such as this.

"Thank you Cheryl." Archer coughed the name of the Gardevoir quickly as he received his drink from the Pokémon, the frontal portions of his mind fizzing as if the Gardevoir was trying to telepathically talk to him, but it was exhausted. Archer poked his cheek with his tongue as he looked straight into the red eyes of the humanoid like Pokémon. The Gardevoir had sensed his bubbling sympathy as he sat down to the smoking Proton.

"Hey, I've told most of the staff that the bar is off limits for the next few hours." Archer stated, almost to no one as he looked up at the decorated ceiling, the bar dimly lit, the Gardevoir perking her face up.

"You can take a break, go outside for a bit, look like you could use some air." The young executive had said, hinting to the puffing man next to him. The Gardevoir smiled, not saying anything, but silently dissipating into thin air and teleporting out of the building.

Moments passed before the two blue haired men spoke, Proton adjusting his popped collar before once again taking a puff.

"Sympathy. Makes you feel good but can royally fuck you over in the long run Archer." Proton said, that sentence being one of his beliefs as one of the cruelest executives in Rocket.

"You implying that thing will run away?" Archer asked, running a hand over his tired eyes, the pulsating colors of some far away battlefield passing before his eyes. The battlefield wasn't Guyana of course, but a Sinnoh stadium where a tag team battle was taking place.

Proton leaned on the counter with one arm as he picked out the details of the progressing battle, a Tentacruel having just wrapped its poison laced appendages around a Fearow.

"No. Because if it runs away it will always be in fear of us. Better to live in an empty life than one of fear." The smoke of the cigar floated up to the ceiling, tracing as Proton pointed out the failing strategies of the trainer with the Fearow.

"Shame. That trainer with the bird had quite a nice streak going into this. Got overzealous though, started telling the Fearow to use physical attacks versus the ones that kept enough distance between it and the jellyfish. Gotta keep with what you're good at, you know?"

"Yeah." Archer gurgled through his sips, alcohol being one of his main sources of sustenance throughout the situation in Guyana. Knowing your role was important, as the was the reason why Proton and Petrel were to be boarding a flight to Unova in a few hours, Proton acting as the professional, Petrel as the political strong man who read off strawman arguments that would keep analysts bickering for days.

The referee on the screen waved his flag in favor of the trainer of the Tentacruel, and with that, she won. The screen flicked onto a different battle happening in the same tournament.

"How's the lieutenant?" Proton asked.

"He left me a status report just before I took a break. Quite a pace he's setting." Seventy kilometers, most wounds on hands and arms mostly sealed up by his treatment, the only minutes he stood still was for his own stitching.

"Yeah, I figured he would." Proton said, almost uncaring.

This caught Archer off guard, unnervingly. "What?"

"I used to be a UNG representative in the running, remember? I had to take a million photo ops just to be even considered a viable participant in politics." He closed his eyes, resting the cigar against the laminate wood as he remembered those days.

"Sounds like you have intel."

"Nothing that Giovanni doesn't already know, and something you don't need to know." Apparently the theory of the need to know basis cut both ways.

"Giovanni already knows that Mikita has some grasp over Rebirth, but he intends to keep him in if he gets back to us, he has firsthand experience with Pokémon in ways we cannot match. Nothing to say of his training." Archer threw back the last of his drink with Proton's calm talk, outraged, but too tired to care that what he had said to Mikita after he had cleared the warehouse.

"On with it man." Proton had nearly shoved Archer off his stool, not addressing him by proper title in that tone of voice.

"Raise your voice again and I'll have your balls in a much tighter vice." Proton still had the tongue of a politician with the strong hand of a fighter. He didn't beat down anymore though, clearing his throat as he began spilling what he had.

"Now then…Noelle. I took a photo op to Vermillion once so that I could be labeled as supporting the troops. They let me in on a few changes they were making for the particular class they were training for 2319. Noelle was part of that class. Ridiculously young. Now the 2319 guys were coming back from a training mission, the usual, some war games at the bottom of Mt. Silver and stopping by Celadon to stop some bank robbery. Now the class was only one hundred or so big, only sixty or so ending up graduating. But there was a reason for that.

"Now I didn't see Noelle in the group but he was probably there when I was getting my photos taken, shaking hands. Someone told me that his class was special in training, that they were ten times the soldier of previous classes of officers, that they weren't taught like the previous classes, or even the next few for that matter. They were simply a trial run for future soldiers as a whole, both regular GI and officer. Some very intense shit, made most spec ops look outdated. They graduated just in time to liberate Hanoi and they were the reason for that success. I've seen them go through killhouses with my own eyes, I've seen the reports and the stories from abroad. Giovanni has them if you want to take a look by the way… Anyway…

"I'm not talking about Mikita but his crop in general. Mikita might think he's doing something bigger than him, but it might be us using someone bigger than ourselves. Of those sixty graduates, only half of them remain in service today because of either death or because of some disciplinary action. Mikita is only one man out of a handful of the UNG's plan, whatever it may be. Rebirth isn't the only world changing plot in the works." An equally long huff followed the speech, Proton seemingly tired even before the conferences.

"I just don't get Noelle. Micky…" Archer dwelled on his nickname. Proton silently passed the junior executive a thick cigar, the same as his own, using a gold lighter to ready it.

"Yeah, I hear you. I looked over what records Giovanni gave us, especially the psych record and the historical record. I can't believe he's only twenty four with his record. They certainly tossed his company around the world."

"It's not the record Proton; it's the person underneath that soldier."

"The problem with the fact he joined so early is that the Academy destroyed him and built him up. He's nothing but a soldier, which should be perfect for the job. Soldiers follow orders, and you're the one giving orders."

"Yeah, but he's disobeyed orders before, disobeyed laws." Archer said, getting up and moving to the other side of the counter, washing his own glass in the place of the Gardevoir, shutting off the TVs entirely and turning up the lights.

"Remember. If the UNG found out about Rebirth, we won't be in such a far off position than what Noelle is in. Out of jobs and looking for work. If I were in your position Archer, especially with those god damn Indians interfering, I'd count your losses and rely entirely on that part of Mikita you didn't want to see used."

"What as your first kill like Proton? That first assignment you went on for the Boss? It was nothing like what I'm doing."

Proton, for a moment, looked uncomfortable, but he had shared a lot with Archer in the last few months, especially his own hair care techniques.

"It was all Rebirth related stuff. DNA and R&D resources. For me it was dead corpses of Pokémon in Lavender. For Petrel it was raiding a major Pokécenter for equipment and samples. Arianna had to sleep with a guy in order to secure some property underneath multiple areas in Kanto and the Sevii Isles." He pointed at Archer with the black cigar. "And you… You're also recovering a corpse, but a very important one at that."

"You didn't answer my question." Proton had ignored to answer what his first kill was like, but he stubbed out his cigar and took in a clear breath before starting, hands draping over his eyes. He didn't want to remember.

"Some old Marowak, was my first kill. Got in the way of the graves, I went after its child; it then got in the way of my shovel. Simple as that. I presume killing is one of those things that gets easier each time you do it, hence why Noelle does it like it's second nature." Proton seemed distant, distant enough to wave off another drink.

"I don't think about it much, that's probably how the lieutenant does it."

"There must be more than that, there's no way this is that easy for him." Archer tried to reason with every single body count he reported after quick firefights.

"Giovanni and I have the reports from every single one of his deployments. Nearly a hundred deployments, each one about a month long on average. He writes reports like us, and we know most of his actions through them. I'd look through them if you are so interested on what the UNGA envisions as a killer." Proton had said before turning his head back forward, puffing as always, Archer with his head hung low, almost touching the counter as he sipped in his fatigue.

"What has Giovanni done then?" Archer asked brazenly, changing the subject, Proton taken aback by the question. However he answered it as fast as he could as if someone was always listening.

"He gave us a goal: To stop an extinction. Other than that, well, I'm not privy."

* * *

The leather jacket Proton wore had been expensive, complimenting his rough figure and square face. Money was never an issue, Archer's black Rocket emblazoned suit costing a pretty penny. It was the same dress code every Rocketeer in Silph's white hallways had worn, but he enjoyed the uniqueness of the suit when amongst the crowd.

So among the other issues Archer took up with Proton, it was money.

Money was of no issue, and it shouldn't have been, Archer telling his elder executive about the discussion Mikita had. Proton had favored the military man's request to Archer's surprise and distaste.

"Noelle gets a million. Promise? Money moves people." Proton's white gloved hand went out, Archer shaking it as Proton slipped away to catch his flight. "Yes sir." Archer throated reluctantly, making his way back to the situation room, fists curled.

* * *

"One hypothesis. If Rocket truly has a contact in the area and we have intercepted no constant transmission activity, it must be a one way thing that we can't pick up on their end. It's equivalent to what High Command does usually. They don't report to the troops out on the S&Ds, it's vice versa. So whoever might be in the region is a really by the book kinda guy." The details fit, and the staff in the control tower had to agree with the radio operator, even the Major General. The only problem with it was that it conformed nicely to the Godfather's claim of a UNGA soldier being out there.

Another radio operator took the idea and ran with it. "He has the R.O.E if that's the case. Search and destroying everything he's coming across. Our scouts have touched the old dock they launched the raid from and found quite a few corpses in between. We've called back the scouts to the search parties, whoever he is it wouldn't be wise for one of our guys to take him on alone."

The Major General dwelled on the communication portion of the hypothesis though; he already knew that the unknown soldier outmatched his men, mono e mono.

"Well if that's the comparison you'd like to put corporal, you also have to know the parameters of the mission change, and whoever High Command is must notify all assets in the field. My soldiers will be that change if they make contacts, and Rocket will have to respond to whoever is down there so that they may try to save their goal." He twirled a finger around his styled and blonde facial hair, tracing his almost skeletal chin in thought.

"How hard have we been bearing down on Rocket?" The Major General asked, sipping on warm coffee as the rest of the staff clicked at the hundred year old keyboards, keeping the squads searching in the forest connected and updateded.

"They're denying having anything left in the region, and they're going to hold a hearing at the end of this week in Unova over UNGA security failures with scientific expeditions. Other than that Wally is getting on R Industries' ass and their ass alone. I know if it's something like this it's usually the entire organization, Silph included, but Wallingford is being very particular about Giovanni about this with these implications of a UNGA lone wolf in Rocket employment. Giovanni is audacious enough to do that."

"Wallingford is a monkey with too much bark and not enough teeth left to bite. If it was up to me I would've called a "threat to national security" and raid that Silph building of theirs."

"Another supremacy speech rant General?" A nameless private had spoken up in a hushed voice, yet everyone hearing it.

"Yeah, we're all white here. Don't tell me you think it's right for that kind of man to be up there." Of course the Major General hadn't made it clear with what "that kind" had meant, but of course anyone who had read his public biography and had ended up within the unit knew that his forefathers had hailed from Germany and a very particular political party. From one plan of domination to another, it was in his pure blood.

The soldiers kept quiet, agreeing, but tired of the Major General's words in the Guyanese heat, returning to their work.

"The next status report we send to High Command, stress priority of surveillance over communications on the public, private, and military sat network. We'll find him, and we'll take out two birds with one stone."

"Where will you be sir?"

"I'm taking off with a platoon, checking out areas of note, like a good ole fashion wolf hunt."

* * *

A/N: N/A


	24. Chapter 20

March 8th. The Raichu wasn't large enough, but it had carried him away off whatever pathetic grasp of a course he had going south. Still, the Raichu gave him a run for his money, and the orientation of the direction they were going was still indeed vaguely south.

Mikita had a double standard as far as he knew. He didn't really adore Pokémon as a trainer. He loved his six Pokémon to the end, no matter where or how they ended up. But Pokémon as a whole, as an entire species that came from the mutated forms of the old, there had been something buried deep within the human mind in those last few hundred years.

It was hard to be masters of the Earth when animals had godlike abilities, especially when the conception that God having made man in his image was clung to during the hardest times. A thousand confident religions and prophets, the self-importance that had come upon man, were challenged by Pokémon.

The Godfathers were a perfect metaphor to those who held onto that illusion of being greater than all men and animals.

The Absol had never been kind to Fortree, if not some cruel twisted form of negotiable. 'You let us feast on one of you unlucky humans when we fail to get a catch, and we'll warn you of disaster.' That was the unspoken deal that no one had broken, something Mikita didn't agree with as a child. Fuel to the fire. Professor Oak always asked how a trainer like him ended up in the military killing Pokémon, but go back a hundred years and it was something to be unquestioned.

He didn't hate Pokémon, he just didn't have the remorse anymore when they died. He'd heard of trainers who had died for their Pokémon, or trainers who had checked into post-traumatic stress clinics after losing their own Pokémon after long battles, but the notion of those events were ridiculous. A wussification of man after an apocalyptic event was not something ideal…militarily speaking of course.

Would Pokémon for whatever reason rise up again, it would be guaranteed a man versus man and Pokémon war: A war which no ordinary soldier could win. The kind of soldiers who would've been victorious in that war was the same kind of soldiers who were victorious during the first crisis. At least that is what UNGA High Command had reckoned as their test subjects had learned, Mikita one of them.

The uninterrupted movement of Mikita's feet was stopped by the Raichu, it hanging by its tail and upside down, arms crossed in Mikita's face.

Most soldiers had learned to talk through body movement, through eyes. But then again Mikita was unreadable; the silver stains in the middle of his whites were hard to look at.

The Raichu's eyes darted left and right before looking straight at the ex-soldier, almost annoyed, the only remaining cigarette dropping ash on its orange forehead.

"No, I don't know why I'm following you." The Raichu seemed to pout, Mikita furrowing his eyebrows to meet the attitude.

"Ehhh. You looked like you could've led to something useful…" Mikita felt the roll of his voice revert back to that hated sound that the UNG populace as a whole loathed. The Raichu wrinkled its nose at the sound of it.

"Do you even know what I'm talking about?" The Raichu had opened its mouth, Mikita thinking it was going to respond, leaning in to hear. All the gunfire of the recent days having worn away at his unprotected ears, he should've really been protecting his face though.

Monkey urine, blood, and now Raichu spit. The glob of saliva had hit the ex-officer dead square in the forehead, dazing him and turning him around for a second, giving the Raichu time enough to run off.

_"Pizda!" _The blackish spit ball was wiped off, but not before obscuring his vision as he tumbled to the ground in disgust and surprise.

_"Wha' ze fuck." _His voice slurred as he tumbled back up, shotgun in his hand once again, but not before tumbling down an incline. The blur of green and brown passed by his face, rolling, knocking into tree trunks and into an old dried up river bed.

Bandages had unrolled and loosened, caught on exposed roots and rocks, as the awkward angles of ammo and his pack dug into his back. Nails and fingers clawed at the dirt, but of course he had already been on the bottom, his mind spinning as the pain caught up with him in the brown dirt. The dirt caked in to the wounds and onto every cranny of his body, the roughness on his face almost mistaken for a rough shave as he ran a hand over it. The dirt grinded underneath the bandages they got under, unnerving and itchy, but there were no more fresh ones to be had.

* * *

For a few minutes after the fall, he considered just sitting there in the dirt and let the jungle take him in one way or another, as if he imagined that the Earth would carry him away and he wouldn't have any problems anymore. Still, doing nothing was hard for him, so he instead walked forward, not caring enough to climb the sides of the dried up river up into the forest again.

As much of a target it made him, he didn't care; he was running on the fumes of spite.

The Kevlar vest had loosened out of wear, not hugging his torso as tightly underneath the scrap of cloth that could've barely been considered medical scrubs. Because of this the ringing in his ears wasn't because of gunshots, but because of the dog tags he wore.

The sun in the clear hot sky had hurt his eyes, so he kept them low, eyelids half closed with the occasional glance left and right to check his sectors. They finally rested on the metal chain around his neck though.

He lost one of the two dog tags in a battle years before, only one of the dog tags an original, showing his personal info. That one had been partly read by Cortex, the greasy smudge of his thumb still on its silver coat. The second dog tag was a replacement, stolen from a dead Soviet hold out when Mikita's company was part of an assault group in Afghanistan raiding a Soviet mountain fortress. No identification, just a star, a sickle, and a hammer emblazoned in gold.

Holding onto the past was something Mikita was good at, for better or worse.

Old stories, old tactics, old tales of battlefield courage in the Third World War. Hammered into his head by the Academy, the crater in his soul premade as a Siberian, a Russian haunted by deeds that weren't his. Unlike the river he was treading though, the past didn't dry up for him. The sins of the motherland came down to its sons. Russians in the UNG were stereotyped as evil, Americans as arrogant.

Maybe that was one reason why he had joined the military; playing with the cards he had been dealt.

The sky had been always so blue in Guyana, not a cloud in the sky during his trek, the sun seemingly keeping at the same position throughout the day. But the occasional glance at his PokéNav revealed the time, the orange device's LED numbers denoting just an hour after midday.

The Riverbed had exactly what he been looking for actually, the Raichu's spit having tumbled him on the right path south. The map had said he was bypassing quite a few outposts, outposts that were manned heavily judging by the black smoke they used for fires and signaling, but he avoided the Godfathers in the dried river.

He could've taken them all on, granted if it wasn't for the fact the only ammo he had left was handful of .45 ACP and the slugs in the Ithaca.

The officer in Mikita had wondered why the Godfathers hadn't used this readily made transportation route and instead kept to the raging rivers and the cramped trails. Those thoughts drew him away as he looked out and saw a yellow orange silhouette of the same rat that spat on his face on the corner of his eye.

It had stood where the river had leveled out with the forest, easy enough to simply walk out of, the Raichu seemingly waiting, smoking on the remaining cigarette.

In the sun Mikita had felt weak, tired and questionative enough to not raise his shotgun. He approached, arms spread out, no threat presented, the Raichu simply sitting as the man walked up to it and gave it shade.

"Why'd you do that?" Mikita had simply said, collapsing onto his bum, head hung low. Adrenaline was good for his combat heavy persona, but it left his body ravaged with weariness, experience and tone not helping after years.

'Cause you were following me you creep.' It said in its scratchy, light language which Mikita had understood perfectly.

"I wanted directions…help."

'I'm all ears.' It said, its floppy brown ears twitching.

"What do you think about _Les Padrinos_?"

The Raichu's face contorted for a second, nose shriveling in disgust. 'What about our fathers?' The distaste on the tongue of the Raichu wasn't just from the cigarette.

"They have something of mine and I need it back." The Raichu had raised his head a bit.

'Rumor going round my brothers and sisters here…' The electric rat raised its paws around, a distinctly familiar Aipom poking out of the greenery and waving at him for a second with a sage green army cap, some birds flocking down as well. The forest was connected, more in the practical sense then in the environmentalist sense of course. Communication was vital in any military as Mikita had come to know, and the forest would benefit from such fast moving information, for better or worse.

'You're that soldier whose been killing my fathers these last few days.' Mikita's limp hand wrapped around his revolver. The Raichu noticed though, letting out a ploom of smoke in his face.

'Don't worry about it. I don't care.'

Mikita's hand relaxed back to his side, over his loose bandage as he considered the statement.

"I'm not a soldier." He had said truthfully.

'You're a soldier boy, _we_ know the type surely.'

"What?" The Raichu had flicked the cigarette stub out toward Mikita, landing in front of him, the whispers of a flame still there as it turned its back on him, one paw beckoning the man as if asking him to follow.

'We don't like soldier boys, but you aren't like the ones we met a few weeks ago. You killed our fathers, didn't work with them…Also you didn't kill one of us given the opportunity a day or so ago, the young ones praised you.'

His head had been hit by a mental bullet, hurting, but unfortunately not killing him to spare himself from the complexity of the situation. Maybe the Raichu had been lying to him, playing some sick joke on a tired man with several bullet wounds and a considerable limp.

The UNG didn't negotiate with terrorists, not as a way to show the populace that they had been civilized, but just opposite of that. Rarely were POWs ever captured, rarer when they had surrendered themselves. When a UNG civilian was caught up in a hostage situation softer ordnance was used of course, but generally the UNG policy about civilians in non-official UNG territories was a bit laxer then those within.

The thought of letting civilians die left more than just a bad taste in Mikita's mouth. He wasn't that cold hearted, wasn't that eager to see and deal death.

_"Ends justified by means Mikita." _The Captain had said, again and again after every time they came across a dead civy or saw a village burn. Those words among others had stuck with him for the years. Only in the quiet moments he had waiting in his cell in the Fiorre region had he really known why the Captain had said it to him: He didn't want Mikita to live with himself for every atrocity he could've blamed himself for.

He could live later, after he got the money, finished his last objective. So all he thought about those words were how he was using it now. Killing tribals in order to get back a priceless artifact was ends justified by means within itself, but he had the faintest thought that perhaps it had gone deeper for him.

Of course it was out of sight and out of mind for him recently, turning his eyes up to the sky as he dealt with the implications of the Raichu's words.

Soldiers of some discernible variety had been dealing with the Godfathers. Whatever dealing had meant in the context, he had his predictions, his assumptions and presumptions which didn't matter in the end because however he put it together it always led back to him. At least literally, the factory spec FMJ ammo that the Godfathers had been using being shot at him through their service spec weapon.

"What?" Mikita said, going into his boot for the map which had yet to disintegrate despite being rubbed against his socks the entire trek. He was about to unfold it, but the Raichu shut its eyes and waved its paws to keep it away.

'No, not here.'

"Then where?" There was a little bite in the back of Mikita's throat, an aggressive tenseness that was often the backing of many interrogations. The Raichu sat unphased however.

'Ask nicely.' Mikita didn't ask, but took out a remaining cigarette, offering the orange end to the Raichu, it taking it within its mouth and holding it for a second, dim lidded. It tensed for a second as Mikita's hand disappeared behind himself, but it eased as it was just a metal lighter. With a click of the flint, the flame lit the paper, the Raichu taking on one breath before breathing it out. The Raichu enjoyed the breath, not minding that Mikita carefully took it out of its mouth and took a breath of his own.

Ridiculous as it was, sharing a smoke with an electric rat, one often considered cute with the population back home, it was innocent in some way.

Mikita's hand returned the cig to the mouth of the Raichu before cupping its chin and rubbing it for a second, eyes locked. The texture of the soft fur covered up the roughened, but not gritty, skin.

'Keep going in that direction.' The Raichu's tail motioned for him, arms and legs to busy hanging almost dead at its side with the pleasure that came with the chin rub.

'If you're going to get whatever you want back, you'll probably be doing some things that we'll end up caring about sometime down the road…' The Raichu's closed its eyes as Mikita's index and middle finger proceeded down to its neck. The Raichu let out a throaty groan, the first part of its name elongated as the cigarette was held haphazardly at the nook of his mouth, leg twitching.

"Why don't you just tell me what's up now?"

'_Rai_…I can't speak for everyone…'

"Fair enough. I expect if I go in that direction, you'll help me?"

The Raichu stumbled back, Mikita making faint tickling motions on its creamish belly. Its expression hardened up, stepping back over to a tree and crawling up it before taking one last look over to Mikita, left in the dirt and staring up expectantly.

'Perhaps.'

* * *

Mikita needed a sit down, the amount of sitting he'd done that day making up for the lack of in the recent days, one leg outstretched as he propped himself on the arm that hurt the least, the other hand kneading his forehead and the bridge of his nose as if it helped combine his running thoughts together. The sun was over half way done with its shift and the moon would come over the sky again. Secretly, he wanted to spend at least one night star gazing as he had from his front row seat outside his house in Fortree, but the time and place wasn't going to give him the opportunity.

The stars would've had to align to keep his thoughts calm though as he dwelled on the subject.

The bi-hourly beep of his PokéNav reminded him to call in to Archer, and he did so without thinking twice, the phone on the other end picked up without a single ring.

"Lieutenant Noelle?" The young executive's voice had said as it had in the same fashion of the last dozen times he had done this.

"Nothing new to report, found a dried riverbed and I think I've clocked quite a few kilometers. Lost count, but I'm making progress. Ammo's not looking good, but I'll go intentionally engage one of those patrols and see what I can grab that's comfortable with me." Mikita had said, tearing away the burnt and flaky shreds of fabric that had remained of the scrubs, the wear and tear quickly almost making him bare save for the slacking ballistic vest.

"Are you sure it's that old US Air Force Base that they got the Dreamstone to?" Archer had asked, one of his advisors trying to but in but he had otherwise smothered her voice out. "We've got no activity on the satellites?"

Mikita was against explicitly stating UNGA involvement regarding the weapons used against him, not believing, but the Raichu's words had him think differently in a liberal sense.

He made up a good cover story in his head, cover stories always in use due to the less than savory actions of the UNGA.

"Well Archer, a science team got slaughtered on the UNGA's watch. The science encampment was in a wide open clearing and if I do remember, you told me that the place got pretty badly damaged. Now the UNG won't exactly like it if the entire world is staring down their throats with those satellites you're using. I presume some tampering of the satellites is happening."

"What?" Archer had said, not grasping the idea.

"During Operation Fortune Soul we borrowed time from Devon's weather satellites. The UNGA has priority access to the orbital satellites with the ability to take visual images; mostly for recon and the sort. If the UNGA has unquestioned access I don't think it's too out of the way for them to use some old images from the last time the sat passed over."

"What?" Archer had said again, still not wrapping his head around the idea.

"You've been using old intel for the last few days Archer. You're blind."

* * *

It took a few minutes of ranting from Archer to 'convince' Mikita that he was wrong with the satellites, but when Mikita transmitted his coordinates Archer didn't want to peer over to see the vague blur of the ex-soldier to see if he was correct. If he was correct and the UNGA was tampering with the visual feed, he wouldn't be there at all, and Archer didn't want to believe.

A fault of many officers was that they couldn't believe odds were being stacked against them. It was a lesson he learned from the Second World War teachings; on how the Japanese after they lost their momentum at Midway couldn't believe that they were being beaten back and thus lost their drive, many committing seppuku in the face of any they didn't want to stand against because of disbelief.

There was no easy way out for either of them, so ignorance was bliss, and Mikita relented just to shut Archer up as the phone was passed around and he updated each of them individually. The weather man got his data, the Pokémon analyst got his observations, the psychiatrist that was signed over to analyze Mikita asked him the few redundant questions he answered the same in a passive aggressive way, and the UNG analyst updated him of the political situation brewing because of Guyana. Apparently two executives had arrived in Unova and started the process for security hearings over the fact quite a few men had died while 'mining' in Guyana under the UNGA's watch.

There was another specialist, the military one, but he was hands off, not wanting to waste feckless words on a fellow veteran. He wanted to talk to Mikita truly, but it wasn't the time or the place.

The last report was filed out and Mikita's finger drifted over the end call selection, but Archer had ended the call on a note he didn't seem to like particularly saying. It made Mikita happy, to say the least, a charge back in his step as he walked up.

"We've made the arrangements to provide you... a significant boost to your payment given your prior request after I consulted with another executive of mine…"

Mikita bit his bottom lip softly, smiling for a second before shouldering his shotgun in the direction the Raichu wanted him to go.

"How much?"

"A million. Hard cash. Physical bills are less likely to be tracked. Basically it's the Boss' pocket change, money we could scrounge up that no one would miss." People tend to forget how much a million dollars was, even Mikita when he had felt like said amount. A million dollars would've renovated all of Fortree's foot bridges and fences on its perimeter and kept them sturdy for decades. A million dollars would've bought him a dozen purebred Dratini eggs. A million dollars would let him buy quite a piece of art from the museum next door in Lilycove. A million dollars was enough to start a new life with.

A normal man would've shed a tear in joy, but a normal man would've also been dead if he were in Mikita's situation, so he simply smirked before wiping it off his face and cracking his leg for another few dozen kilometers to travel.

"Thank you." He throated.

Archer bit the inside of his mouth, sucking his cheeks and running one hand through his short blue hair. The psychological advisor had glared with her eyes at Archer to say something back, but it betrayed the persona he had to set with himself for being a Rocket executive.

"I suppose you deserve it in some degree…" The psychological advisor smiled to herself, nodding her head in approval, but wiped away as Archer added one more statement to that.

"But we'll spend millions more if you fail this, most of it aimed at trying to punish you for your failures."

"Trust me; I'm doing a good job at doing that already."

* * *

a/n: Fun fact: I write up some background information I never use, reference images and documents which will never be seen because the excess is what true characters live on.

Micky here, was a trainer, four years. His final team was as follows: Staraptor, Metang, Milotic, Ninetails, Weavile, Ariados. The only boy in that team was his starter and the Ariados. Foulke was the only nickname I made for them so far, for the Staraptor. Noble name though, was named after a fictional ace pilot. Mikita wasn't a 'nuzlocker' per se, never lost any of his Pokemon to death during his journey. That preservation skill was brought over to his service. Didn't mean he lost men he cared about...

Foulke is the only one mentioned to some significance, his Pokemon journey is another story, one that I probably will leave untouched save for the occasional reference.

Anyway, If you want to take a peek at my reference documents and images, it's in my dropbox link. Cheap as it may be, paste this in front of the dropbox website link: /sh/v64psx22cgyhmuc/s5V4YpWPpg


	25. Chapter 21: Mongolia

Intuition and prior experiences had him trust the Raichu as he walked further into the forest in the direction it had said to go. There was no other reason to trust the Raichu other than good faith, but the words it had leaked to Mikita was incentive. Following leads of insurgent cells was something he was used to doing, and he didn't have a bad vibe about this one for all that it was worth, deep in the rainforest trying to find an old stone with a petrified Pokémon in it.

Mew, the implications that it was one of the very first Pokémon within the stone, it was nothing less than a treasure, some holy grail of Pokémon research if one was ever captured dead or alive.

The Academy had taught him how to proceed with killing gods in case it was ever needed, the Mew species especially being praised as one by the more fanatical, the merging of Pokémon in religion frightening when it was an accepted normality. Marx himself had preached old Christianity, the one without the Sinnohic legend Arceus being Christ's own Pokémon or some anthropomorphism of the Lord himself.

When Kyogre had showed up in the middle of the Hoeannic Sea a little less than half a century ago it was a miracle the whale was killed in the middle of Sootopolis. UNGA regulars who had been manning the local posts in Hoenn were the only ones on hand to deal with the suddenly overly aggressive and feral Pokémon hordes that were brought up by the emergence of a god. Mikita knew how easy it was to kill a Zigzagoon or a Mightyena, how difficult it was to deal with an Absol or a Rhydon, and he could imagine the hell of waves of Pokémon attacking human towns and cities in his home region. In the simulation the Academy gave him where he had to deal with the Sootopolis Incident, he was ordered simply to survive the whopping half a day with limited resources and manpower.

In the buildup and preparation lessons to that simulation which Mikita was given the command table in a mock HQ tent, Mikita was taught to simply survive the Incident and preserve Hoenn's infrastructure.

The actual aftermath of the incident left Sootopolis City decimated and most of the eastern coastline along Lilycove heavily damaged. Inland the Pokémon dealt moderate damage to the more rural towns, his hometown of Fortree faring well due to the populace's elevated position and already Pokémon hardened men and women of the town. In fact his own grandfather and father picked up arms in the fight against, albeit his father had just been a child.

It was a war game to Mikita in that test, planted in front of a holographic display and various maps within the tent and hearing over radio transmissions and dealing with organization of the sprawling UNGA defenses.

Of course he was taught to play it defensive, but it was a trick of mind, a rhetorical lesson, that many of the class had looked past and done what the actual commander of the forces in the Sootopolis refused to do.

The sonar signal he picked up from sonar buoys in the southern Hoeannic waters was evidence enough of Kyogre's introduction.

The movements of the god whale were very direct, placed under Sootopolis City where the entire event culminated in some apocalypse bringing event made by Team Aqua back in the day. Mikita accounted for the eco-terrorists during the simulation, using the flight of F-4 attack aircraft to not strafe the Gyarados going mad in the Lilycove Bay as they had historically, but rather having them establishing a Combat Air Patrol over Sootopolis, intercepting a flight of Team Magma helicopters that had been under the guise of civilian helicopters, turning them away. The UNGA Naval port in Lilycove handled the Gyarados just fine given the late introduction of a UNGA Navy battleship launching from dry dock during the incident, the mini offensives performed by Mikita's orders impressing his test graders.

In the end Mikita lost points for the complete and utter shelling of Sootopolis City, his intentions being that his recon pickets had picked up a massive Aqua gathering in the middle of the city, deep underground within the fabled Cave of Origin within the city. However the aggressive tactics measured out that mishap and collateral damage.

Seeing as everyone had known the history of the Sootopolis Incident, the test takers only acted upon recon and intel as they got it, unable to pre-emptively place troops and artillery pieces where they historically were wanted. Because of this though none had really done what Mikita had, directly interfering with the still partly classified events of the Sootopolis Incident and killing Kyogre himself as opposed to what had really happened, which no one knows what.

Professor Oak, one of the observers, had only laughed and handed Mikita a towel and a pat on the back after his session was done. He had said something akin to how Mikita's actions would've killed him, but it was a fleeting comment, said under his breath, Mikita barely comprehending after hours of mental exertion.

He had always been a god killer in that sense, six years later. He had never again handled an operation of that scale, simulated or not, but he was fine with that, he had been killing enough people in his life and he didn't want to chalk some up on his side because of a tactical mistake.

He was perfectly fine, boots in the mud, being miserable as he was in the present.

* * *

The orientation was in the general direction of south west, bringing Mikita to a moderate muddy river that drained out the dead one had fallen into several hours ago. Crossing it had left him with most of his lower body caked with mud and dirty water, his mood dampened still as the PokéNav had told him it was five in the evening, the blue sky giving way to a warm amber with flushed out white stains across it.

The Godfathers had frequented the area, evidence of the stakes in the ground for their wooden boats more than enough for Mikita to grimace over the fact he was low on ammo.

The gold brass on the end of his shotgun shells were as precious as the gold the Godfathers had decorated themselves with, their bracelets and head dresses adorned with the mineral. In Mikita's mind, he still chuckled about their attire, on how silly it was coming from a civilized point of view. Tactically thinking, the weight of the gold probably threw them off as well in combat.

However unlike his shotgun shells, the Godfathers could've mined the mineral from the Earth as he found out.

The swish swoshing of water in a pan was the giveaway as Mikita lowered himself into the brush, concealing himself in the foliage as his head went on a swivel, shotgun shouldered meaningfully.

The caw of a Hoot-Hoot made him snap his head left, the vague outlines of Godfathers kneeling in the sand evident through the brush

His mind pinged, body moving automatically against the cover of the largest tree he could find closest to the small stream they'd been 'playing in'. The crook of his head out of cover and his body had tensed up in that all too familiar combat state, ready for war. He breathed through his mouth, sucking in air as he silently cracked his tense bones.

"Eight contacts. Six combat ready." He stated to himself.

They had been panning for gold apparently, two of them panning and sorting through nuggets and dust on a wooden table and the other six either taking a break or defending them. Given Mikita's meddling, he reasoned that he was behind the unusual ratio of guard to worker.

The shining yellow powder had gleamed as it sat undisturbed. Enticing as it was, it was quite possibly a hassle to transport, shooting down his own hope for some extracurricular scavenging, especially since one million more was coming his way if he simply completed the objective.

Between the six tribals they wielded AR-15s, not exactly preferable, the lessons of Fortune Soul teaching most of the UNGA of using the AR-15 in a rainforest environment, but Mikita dealt with what he could make do with, both back then and in the present. The Ithaca was slung across his chest as the 1917 was brought out, the grip intertwined with the tantō as he ducked into the brush, inching closer to them.

They had crappy guard positioning, backs turned to the forest and instead talking to each other in Portuguese or Spanish. One guard in particular seemed like he had been alone, but the rocks he was standing next to were actually Geodude.

Of all the mysteries of Pokémon biology, Geodude were one of them. How they came about because of radiation mutation was lost among more pressing issues, but Mikita knew enough from his dissections that it made sense that a few were in gold rich Guyana. Whenever Mikita had come across a corpse of one in his journeys as a trainer or met a few rowdy examples blocking his convey out in the Middle East, he had seen the varying gemstones or precious metals at the core of the Pokémon. As he understood it, Geodude were hunted because of this fairly valuable part of their biology.

It explained some of the more exotic gems he had seen as necklaces in the Godfathers' possession.

Geodude weren't a hard kill. Many of those treasure hunters actually just taking a rock of their own and bashing Geodude. It was really strength in numbers that made Geodude dangerous, a fact that Mikita was acutely aware of in this scenario, outnumbered one to a dozen Godfathers and Geodude combined.

Mikita was never reluctant to shoot first anymore, to delay entry into combat, but he held his breath as two tribals walked past the bush he was hiding in, talking to each other. His concealment in the bush was only picked up as the outlying Godfather in the pair took a glance down, but once their eyes locked it was too late.

He sprung from the bush, knife out, diving into the side of the tribal's stomach as he grabbed the unprepared tribal's neck. The blade forced its way across the entire width of his stomach as he forced the body to conceal him, the dying man leaning on him as one arm reached out past his meat shield with the revolver.

The tribal that had been next to the one Mikita had gutted froze up, backing away as he saw his compatriot's gut roll out in a red gloop onto the sand. If the tribal could've done anything, it was all meaningless, a .45 shot to the man's collar bone making him choke on his own blood as he fell onto the ground.

It took a while before the individuals had realized what was happening; why there had been a man dying on the sand and why one was leaning back with his guts spilling out. The ex-soldier behind the now disemboweled Godfather revealed all as everything clicked into place for the Godfathers.

The two gold panners dropped their pans into the stream, scrambling for a weapon as the guards raised their weapons, shouting in their foreign languages. The Geodude levitated up, backing off as their fathers moved forward, M16s raised.

He felt the rounds pierce through the human shield he was holding, almost harmlessly tumbling out and into his Kevlar vest with a soft thud. The first shots were exploratory, the Godfathers not comprehending that Mikita wasn't dead despite the shots. He snickered as he ducked his head behind the definitely dead man's back, peeking out over his shoulder with the revolver.

He closed the distance, pushing forward with the body, the man's feet dragging across the sand, his entrails following Mikita as well, the Godfathers forming a half circle in front of him.

The fingernails he grasped onto the back of the man's skin with drew blood, tearing out as his right leg came up and pushed the dead body onto one of the three remaining Godfathers that had a weapon, smothering him and forcing him to the ground. The instant his right leg returned to the ground his entire body shifted toward the Godfather intending to poke Mikita's cheek with a black rifle before getting a skulltap. His hands clasped together around his pistol and knife, his wrist forcing the barrel down to the dirt before a shot got off. The momentum of his body transferred into his right leg again, the hard rubber put to good use, his entire body on a tilt with his left leg as he twirled. He felt the tribal's skull break all the way through the roundhouse, keeping contact with his jaw all the way through and smothering the man's head in the sand as he faced the other direction.

The Godfather opposed to him backed down as he saw what Mikita's boot had done the face of his compatriot, Mikita staring down the notched sights of the 1917. What vague motion the tribal made, dropping his M16 and opening his palms, was meaningless to Mikita, three more shots going out in metallic bangs following the snap of the double action hammer. In the rush of his mind time had slowed, the three shots elaborate in their aiming, the pomf each time a bullet had entered the flesh was the marker within the ex-soldier's head of good effect on target. The ethic of no mercy had been his preferred choice of engagement ruling, but then again his preferred choice of weapon had often left him to give writhing, dying enemy combatants mercy kills. The precise placement of the .45 ACP rounds had cut through the man's center of mass, the final shot skewed across his neck, leaving him literally breathless and soon after dead.

The tribal under his boot had still been alive, though Mikita's foot came across the back of the man's neck, an abrupt snap killing him as Mikita dropped the revolver, the Ithaca pushed forward toward the two tribals that had still been scrambling for their weapons, fumbling with them.

The first time Mikita picked up a gun he acted the same, the training rifles he was given during the Academy intentionally beat to hell, rusted, and crappy due to the circumstances of his class: which was to say they were given the worst factors and told to be the best or else suffer great mental and bodily pain. The normal for the 2319 was the absolute best for every other class, and the training had showed.

The buckshot spread brought out by the distance to his targets had taken out two birds with one stone, the rifles spread out on the same wooden table that the gold dust and nuggets were being sorted out on flying as the bodies collapsed, glitter sparkling as the Geodude finally decided the step in.

Four Geodude were hardly a problem, even when he was a trainer and starting out with a Starly, his Pokémon reigning victorious even with the disadvantage. He didn't consider Geodude Pokémon in a way, and instead he thought of them as the clay targets he used for target practice.

Half a decade of pumping, loading, and shooting had refined his usage of a shotgun, the first shot that went out to a charging Geodude completely shattering it, Mikita's left hand pulling back and releasing the shell. The Geodude had taken the body of their fallen comrade with their gravelly arms and used it as a projectile, Mikita taking a face full of rock head on, the slight concussion he had as he trembled back nothing to the chips of rock that had hooked into his skin.

The Geodude had pushed forward in his stunned state, shotgun taken away as the three remaining ganged up on him. A hefty, rocky, greyish arm garbbed the collar of his ballistic vest, hauling him up as the two other Geodude had seized his arms.

He tore away with his left arm, taking the arms of the Geodude with him, a punch forming, only to contact the Geodude's own uppercut, hooking arms.

Bashes, punches, twisting bodies and rocks ripping across skin. What would have been a blur to any other person was a blur to Mikita himself. The proposal of punching rocks to death was something that had hurt him as much as it made his knuckles bleed. In the four longest years of his life at the Academy though, he was taught how to do anything. 'Anything' was a range which he didn't comprehend himself, but it was all retained in brain that had been knocked around in his skull more times than he could remember.

His elbow slammed down on the Geodude with one arm, lowering it to the ground, Mikita's foot coming through a split second later, cracking the rock Pokémon in two. What the Geodude had in place for blood was a runny, muddy liquid, the lower of his legs coated as he dived for his shotgun following the kill.

The cold barrel was grabbed as a Geodude delivered a punch to his shoulder, Mikita's heels defiantly stuck in the mud, the old wooden stock, flying through the air in response. The crack of wood and rock was the last use Mikita ever got out of the shotgun, using it as a club, splintering the Pokémon as the last survivor dived on him.

The jagged and rough surface of its fingers ringed around his neck, whatever shouting and yelping he did strained and rubbed out. The blood curdling in his throat was all he tasted as his airways were shut, arms flailing at a loss of what to do. The white eyes of the Geodude stared right back at him, its thumbs digging into his throat.

If it had been another human he would've choked back, but it had no neck, the only his hands could grasp on were the roofs of its mouth.

His strength and combat effectiveness was not defined by how quick he could reload a gun, how much pain he could deal and deal with, or how much loyalty he held onto with his orders. Instead he was taught that it was a matter of will, and all the conditioning and training all rode on his willingness to conduct the main rule that every soldier follow or else: survive.

What strength his tired muscles could gather tore at the Geodude like a reverse bear trap, splitting open the Geodude even as the air was being locked out of him, chips of gravel digging into his neck.

* * *

He forgot that there had been a disembodied Geodude arm on his left forearm, but his fingers didn't respond as he sat down on the stream's banks, upstream from where the bodies of one of the Godfathers diluted the stream with red. In one hand was a fistful of magazines for the M16 in his other hand, blank eyed as he let all the excruciating pain and soreness pass through his body in one swoop, heavy and burning breaths tingling the back of his nose as his throat felt constrained beyond belief.

Placing the gun and the ammo asides, the cupping of his hand flickered by the sheen of the fresh water and the flecks of gold dust in it as he went for water. Temporary relief flowed through his system, cleaning his better progressed wounds with the liquid, scrubbing away dead skin and scar tissue. His pack had held nothing more than very specific medical items now, biogel and foam running out, bandages all but gone. He knew in his bones that he would break one of them sooner or later and held onto such supplies, but it was disheartening to not have enough to ease the pain of the several bruises, sores, and swelled skin where bullets had cut through and underneath the ballistic vest.

The final remnants of the blue and green scrubs were torn off, the scraps of fabric of what was once an international aid group's uniform now sent into the stream and drifted off into a bigger river. The vest had covered his torso and torso only, nothing underneath save for the dog tags clamped underneath it, the lack of sleeves being a blessing against the Guyanese heat.

His hands had been wiped clean of the Geodude blood as they hung idle in the cool stream, a streak of brown and a hint of Mikita's own blood coming from the overused knuckles, Mikita's eyes following the trail of blood in the stream as they emptied into a larger river, the current sweeping the color away as if it had been time's current itself.

What impact Mikita had on it was little, at least in his own mind. Soldiers were never taught to save the world anymore, seeing as it had come to an end once over already. If they couldn't save it the first time, it was useless to try again, so instead they were trained to simply keep it the way it was in its comfortable, though precarious state, neither making it better nor worse.

The only thing that felt strange to Mikita being in Guyana was the fact he was under not UNGA orders, but by a contract of Rocket Industries. He was used to all the killing and all the hurt and pain, which was expected of him, but above that there was that omnipresent feeling that Mikita tragically wasn't familiar with much: making a difference.

The bi-hourly beeping of his PokéNav echoed from underwater, his numb fingers twitching over and calling Archer.

"Lieutenant Noelle?" The constant answer from the baby faced junior executive that was his handler. A constant reminder of something he once was.

"Micky." He gritted through his teeth, gritted through his pain.

"Does it matter lieute-"

"Archer, I am NOT a lieutenant anymore and I have the decency to not shame those who hold my former rank by associating it with my name."

* * *

Honor, loyalty. Romantic visions that he held onto as a soldier. Better to live by those words then to live by no words at all.

As far as honor was concerned, his CO _was_ a samurai descendent, and he often thought he absorbed those honorable traits often attributed with the ancient warriors through some photosynthesis. At least, that's what he told people. The old man that the Captain was had told Mikita of his own memories, of his own stories, and Mikita recognized what honor does to people like them. It kept the bloodlust away, kept people alive, kept your soul clean as best as you could and happy with yourself. He honored his enemy, respected the opposition, and honored the requests of all. It was a good mantra that kept him from hating everything.

However when that honor is stripped from a person, it is truly a test to see if they valued it, which Mikita did, and he recognized himself as a man without honor after what he had done.

Archer didn't understand, even after all the time that Mikita had often corrected him when he was addressed by his former rank, Rocket's brutal business etiquette corrupting its executives and admins. Giovanni probably had taken that darkness into his heart as a means to ends. In this case Mikita being the means to that end, whatever it was with Dreamstone and its Mew.

"You don't sound like you trust R Industries Mikita. Even after the pay boost." Archer said bluntly as a PS at the end of the call, but Mikita kept it going with that. Trust was a vital component, as said the thousands of memos he got from High Command about boosting teamwork and morale, but he believed in it and made people believe in it.

"Trust is earned." Mikita had said, sighting his new rifle, making sure it had cycled as best it could in the damp environment, field stripping it.

"I don't need to prove anything to you." Archer had said menacingly.

"You don't need to prove anything to me but it sounds like you have everything to prove to your boss." Mikita had said in his matter of a fact tone, switching off his PokéNav, leaving Archer steaming as usual.

_Am I usually this snarky? _He inwardly thought, working on cleaning his scavenged rifle. He only shook his head and chuckled, figuring it to be something that every twenty four year old was, going back and thinking about some other time he had to deal with trust issues.

* * *

_ "Didn't know you were a sniper LT." _

_ To be fair Mikita was trained to be a lot of things, he had the same training as Covey in terms of his marksmanship, which was impressive enough, but he had a myriad of multiple traits and skills learned through the Academy just for his class:_

_ How to man a tank, CQC, very basic knowledge on how to fly attack aircraft and helicopters (granted Mikita's stomach disagreed with flying entirely), calculations for ballistics trajectories, demolitions know how, wilderness survival, covert operations training… The list went on and Mikita had to wonder how the heck the Academy had been able to cram all of it in in only four years._

_ He wasn't complaining though, he found good usage for it, especially during his first deployment in the ancient region of Mongolia, deployed in a very thick ghillie suit on top of a cliff overlooking a large plain that the 'native' Rapidash and Ponyta roamed. _

_ The local farmers had often complained of raiders and scavengers stealing horses for their own uses, whether it be food, bartering value, or straight transportation. Mikita and Crowe had felt inclined to help, but of course there wasn't much they could do other than keep watch over the herds. The dull option was of course what they took; Mikita's platoon spread out over some choice Rapidash grounds._

_ Mongolia was a relatively untouched region, the Third World War not tainting the land too much, just enough for the animals there to mutate all the same as their counterparts all over the world. Despite the lack of environmental damage the sky was always grey, the constant layer of clouds blowing with the cold winds across the relatively flat region. It was the same story with South Africa, the people here were so fortunate post-war that they hardly noticed that the world burned and went on with their lives as usual for a few decades, Pokémon effectively ending that normality when they appeared to them. The Mongolians had handled Pokémon well, simply padding over their clothing with more flame retardant clothing given that Ponyta and Rapidash had manes that had been on fire._

_ Save the occasional bird species, equine species ruled Mongolia; the mostly passive examples leaving little for the UNGA to deal with save for the human raiders or scavengers. Occasionally a few farmer communities would protest UNGA rule, but the UNGA was preferable to the roaming bands of scavengers._

_ The steel bolt of Mikita's Nagant was locked back as he blew out some dirt that had found its way inside the action, tilting his head toward the two men he had been prone with to his left._

_ "I'm a jack of all trades." Covey was armed with a more modern rifle then Mikita's several century old one he had taken off one of the dead raiders, though Haven had only been armed with a pair of binoculars and a calculator._

_ Haven was apparently Covey's spotter, Mikita joining the two out of knowing that he wouldn't be bored with their constant chatter as they covered their area, their rifles giving them the ability to reach out more than a kilometer._

_ They had just finished up offing a pair of scavengers, the two gasmask and balaclava wearing individuals trying to chop through the wire fence that marked the property. The crack of Covey's 98 Bravo and Mikita's Nagant cutting the two down, their bodies falling back into the tall grass, undisturbing the horses they were protecting._

_ "Well, that's seven confirmed kills today. I don't think you deserved that last one though bro." Haven had tallied off the kills on his calculation notepad. "You barely skimmed his neck with that one."_

_ "As if the LT here got any better, that was at least a klick and a half." Covey whined. _

_Mikita had readjusted his rifle at one kilometer, readying himself for another few hours of wait before he could pull the trigger again._

"_Well he got that target square center mass. He got it quicker as well." Mikita didn't mind the banter, he would've enjoyed it more if the three men didn't lock legs in a technique that steadied recoil. At that range it was the furthest shot he had taken all day, and he had nailed his target on the second shot, the round's travel time taking several seconds._

"_In fact I'm pretty sure he was moving to pick up on your target as well." _

"_Shut up George."_

"_First come first serve gentlemen." As all perfectly sane in the head gentlemen had done in war, they made a game of it, beers to be bought by one of the snipers determined who had been the slacking shooter. Mikita had been intent to win, seeing as he hadn't the money to buy drinks; it was still four years until he started to fight for money._

_He was ahead two kills, certainly not the first time he had scared Covey and Haven in his combat effectiveness._

"_But then again I don't trust you'll fully pay up Covey." The sentence had slurred together as he adjusted his cheek rest._

_Haven ducked down, Covey's head perked up at the accusation._

_He throated a few words, the dryness of the air getting to him. "What makes you say?"_

"_Well I know every time we get back from a mission you go off base for half the night after mess and go fuck a local broad." Mikita had always thought himself as blunt, both in language, attitude, and behavior. Then again he only had the opportunity to make one (human) friend in his entire life. Some stray thoughts about becoming brothers in arms with his comrades had floated about in quiet moments when he was filling out reports on base, but those were thoughts that betrayed his training. He was urged by the Captain to look away with Covey's debauchery officially, but he was inclined to badmouth in that instant._

_He had a vague understanding of what the company did when Mikita and the Captain hadn't accompanied them, what precious time the two officers had on base was spent filing reports. Marx and Haven roamed around the base generally helping out, Marx holding Sunday prayer if he was able to, Haven fiddling around with the base's mechanical needs. Crowe often went out with his six Pokémon, five Mightyena and his Espeon, and trained off base, often leaving the local trainers bruised and UNGA relations deteriorated further. _

_The 'boy's night out' that they rarely had, a good portion Delta company, Mikita included, would go out on the local town and get hammered. Little by little, Mikita finding the alcoholic within him. Those rare glimpses into a regular GI Joe's life had less than impressed him, but as long as they were one hundred percent combat capable in the morning he didn't mind._

_ The problem with Covey was that often brought women, sometimes feminine looking men, back to base for the on base commander, Mikita and the Captain by extension, to clear them for on base… interaction._

"_You act like there's something wrong with it." Mikita didn't turn his head, eye through the scope and sighting up a stray wooden post that had been left behind when the fences were renovated. What simple morals he had he stuck to with his life._

"_Covey, you are violating more than just rules." Mikita licked his lips, remembering the forms that had waited in his digital database that could written out and faxed to High Command for reprimanding. He knew that High Command would listen to him especially as one of their 2319 graduates . "As an officer with responsibilities over his men, and a medic by extension, I am inclined to warn you that I could and should take official action if I do see fit." There was a bite in the back of his voice, a whisper of deep Russian intertwine with the type of tone he had heard for years from Lieutenant Surge._

_Haven only rumbled uncomfortably, more than aware he was connected at the leg between the two men._

_Mikita didn't avoid eye contact because he was afraid, but it was an act, Covey's look for a challenge as his head turned past Haven and into the side of Mikita's head unanswered, left hanging._

"_You don't sound like you trust me."_

"_Professionally, I trust you enough with my life because you trust mine, like it or not, as your executive officer in this platoon." Mikita and the Captain were an odd pairing. Usually a lieutenant like himself led a platoon in the UNGA's command structure, but a pairing of a captain and a lieutenant was a tad overkill._

"_What about personally?" Haven had interjected. Mikita's left hand had only ruffled the shoulder of the second youngest soldier he had under him as if he was the older man. Mikita's true age had betrayed him, having just hit twenty, acting thirty. The shoulder shake had said enough, Mikita not minding Haven's fairly innocent persona, giving out candy to young kids and following Mikita whenever he did his rounds around secured towns to provide medical assistance._

"_Urghk." Miktia grumbled, more intent on sighting up the stray post in some posturing, setting up some familiar landmark to gauge whatever shots came next._

"_Two years of fighting side by side and you don't trust me lieutenant?" Trust wasn't easy for Mikita to give away, not after all the experiences he had chalked up in the past two years, not ever since he had the taste of the military life and all of the edginess that had left a bad taste in his mouth._

"_Trust has to earned." _

"_I'll prove that you can trust me."_

"_Easy there Claire." Haven had tried tugging on the non-existent leash of his best friend._

_Clarick had violently adjusted his rifle, making a point as he straightened out his rifle and locked up his bipod. His scope swiped up and down the range, looking for something to Haven's bewilderment._

"_You see that post at bearing 315?" It was the same wooden post Mikita had been sighting up._

"_Affirmative." He answered, left arm going across and resting on his right shoulder in a steadying movement._

"_Forget about the beer bet."_

_Mikita snickered, knowing he'd won that bet, even though Mikita assumed correctly that Covey wouldn't pay. "Alright."_

"_If you can tag that post in one shot, I'll ask you for permission every time to go out on the town, and I'll respect your orders in regards to that. Trust me, I'm a man of my word and Georgie here can vouch."_

_The curve of Haven's eyebrows towards Mikita had said that it was a serious bet, a lot being on the line in some ridiculous way. Unfortunately for Covey it was the same post he had been sighting up the entire time._

"_On the other hand, if you miss-"_

"_Haven, bullet drop at 1000 yards is about 390 inches, correct?" Mikita cut Covey off, not caring, knowing he could do it._

"_Aye, sir. Wind speed has been constant; suggest you change up ten clicks and go high left."_

_In the long seconds it took Mikita to properly adjust his old rifle Covey had sweat bullets, for the first time knowing what many an enemy had dreaded when they realized they were up against Mikita or any of his class. That sureness, that blunt knowing that you were dead only because you were facing such a person._

_Two years in and the rumors had spread of 'Generation Kill', the Class of 2319, amongst both the enemies of the UNGA and the UNGA itself._

_The marksman had thought Mikita a fallible person in the moment before he shot, backing up from the scope and shaking his head before looking down the optic again, taking in one long breath that Covey had mistook for a sigh._

"_Can't do it?" He teased. Only when Mikita had held that breath, he knew he was screwed, smacking himself for not recognizing what he was doing._

_The post had been on flat grass, the sway of them denoting the wind speed, back dropped by nothing that would've distracted him from his elevated position on a cliff, nearly a thousand yards out._

_His hearing muffled, his heartbeat was present, and his lungs tightened up as his finger curled around the trigger. The crack of the 7.62 Russian rifle rung out throughout the area, in the short moments before impact, Haven shooting a glance at his best buddy on how screwed he was before peering back into the binoculars, Covey burying his head in his arms._

_What sounded like a pencil being broken was the marker of a made bet, the wood post shattered in dozens of splintered pieces._

"_Hit." Haven had said, Mikita releasing his breath, releasing the spent cartridge with a metal clang._

_Covey's face was riddled with disbelief, twisted in some vague emotion that read that he thought it wasn't fair. "We didn't shake on-"_

"_Private Covey, you come to me before you go off the base as long as you are under my command. You disobey these orders and terms and you will spend the rest of your service as a desk sergeant. Is that understood?"_

"_I-…." He sighed once, running a hand through his curly brown hair, removing the hood of his ghillie suit to let air in. "You can trust me, sir."_

_That should've been the end of that, but the acute hearing of Mikita through his ear pieces caught the tail end of a racist comment said under the Johtonian man's breath._

"_Fucking Ivan and his Ruskie rifle…" The Mosin Nagant was a Russian rifle, and Mikita was Russian, more then understanding the hostile intent of the comment._

* * *

_Mikita didn't make any comment when Covey had said that, Haven stressing out so much that it forced the sniping group to bow out early, returning to base. For the first time Mikita had smoked not to impress the soldiers around him, to fit the officer stereotype he was supposed to have, but to actually get rid of the thoughts going around in his head and to get to the core of the problem._

_It was near midnight when the Captain returned, after the text book chatter of the debrief Mikita had taken him aside as the base shone orange in the dark of Mongolia._

"_Permission for a special type of Alpha-15 directed at Private Clarick Covey sir." Mikita had said, hands clasped in front of himself, still dressed in body armor, head tilted._

_The Captain had glanced over to the exit of the debrief room, catching a glimpse of the soldier in question._

"_Reasons lieutenant?"_

"_Disrespect of this person sir."_

"_Nature of it?" The Captain had asked, almost giving Mikita the permission for the hands on punishment, but curious._

"_Called me a derogatory moniker based on my ethnicity sir."_

"_Ai… Well, I suppose. Covey's a good guy to hang around, but I do think he does need to be put in place time to time. Permission granted lieutenant, but remember we've got a patrol tomorrow and I expect all my soldiers to be combat ready." Mikita nodded, slapping his heels together and slightly bowing._

_The Captain was a lenient man, having soured in his discipline. There was some fear that all that built up rage and poison was going to be unleashed one day, but the Captain was calm, his straight face bare as he adjusted Mikita's helmet strap again for the umpteenth time._

_He only started thanking the Captain recently for the bad habit._

"_You up to hurting one of your own men Mikita?" He said, patting Mikita's shoulder._

"_If it's necessary, yes."_

"_Well…" The disapproval written on the Captain's face was played down, cross his arms and tightening his jaw. "As you were."_

_Mikita had eyed the service revolver the Captain had in his cross draw holster, with one final request he had borrowed it and chased after Covey._

_The Captain had seen his aura for the fleeting second, it flashing red and silver. But he didn't need to be aura sensitive to know of that streak of evil that had shone on his face._

* * *

_Marx had agreed to this because he never remembered Covey confessing to him anything even if he claimed to be a good Catholic._

_Crowe had agreed because Espy didn't like Covey almost as much as she did Mikita himself._

"_It's rare to see you out of your kit sir." Marx had snickered, not used to being with his executive officer when he had been technically not under his command._

"_Yeah well I don't go off base often and screw the locals." On base they only wore their combat shirts, the colors jaded colors of the UNGA dimmed even further by the orange lighting of the base, situated on another plain just outside of a small town._

_Covey had been checking out at the base's checkpoint, his leather jacket concealing his name and rank that had been stitched on their shirts._

"_Covey's a tad frisky one, ain't he?" Crowe had asked as his Espeon rested, hanging on his shoulder, the occasional rub between its ears stopping the perpetual glaring it gave Mikita._

"_You know I figured I would've gotten to know all of you better in two years."_

_Marx only shook his head, a rough pat to Mikita's back as they waited in between the alley of two tents as they waited for Covey to come to the front of the line leading out of the base._

"_Don't worry about it sir. For all intents and purposes we're bad people and should be used as such. Not many people are in the Army because they want to be."_

_The frown of Marx's mouth was shared with Mikita, a quick glance between the two men he had with him sympathetic._

_He knew Crowe's story, how he failed as a trainer and left with nowhere else to go but the military, but he hadn't known Marx's story._

"_What do you mean Father?"_

_He shook his head again, looking at his feet, readjusting the wooden cross around his neck._

"_If I go out in public again, I'm a dead man."_

_The lieutenant opened his mouth to say something, but Marx knew the look in his eye, the curve of one eyebrow._

"_I didn't do anything to children, I assure you." _

_Mikita held his head back, momentarily ashamed for considering the thought, but Marx's round face read of forgiveness as it always had._

"_Long story short: I pissed off the mafia."_

_Covey's trademark swagger had danced in the air as he began to talk to the checkpoint guards, signing in so he could be signed out of the base. Covey was always a smooth character, forged out of a childhood roaming around Goldenrod City. When Mikita actually cared or bothered to read over the personal dossiers, he found details that he figured he was better off not knowing. Apparently Covey had been the son of two gang members, Aqua and Magma respectively to Mikita's surprise. As such the parents were always fighting. Didn't do good in school, a classic college dropout, sought an outlet in the more sensual ways. Haven confirmed the stories, having joined up with Covey after his initial tour as a UNGA Naval man, ending up in Johto and switching to the ground infantry during the shore leave. It was Haven that got Covey into the army with him, Covey first joining the Scout Sniper school before being kicked out and becoming a GI._

_Mikita asked Haven if he wanted to help him, but Haven bowed out, not entirely comfortable with Mikita's idea of a trust exercise._

* * *

_ They were all toned for war, so it took three men plus an Espeon to subdue Covey just before he got out of the base, dragging him to the barracks to the applause of all the regular GIs, screaming for a rough up and blood._

_ Mikita didn't mind that one or two had come up and given Covey a punch in the gut, the man collapsing to his knees and being dragged by his elbows, but what they did would wreck his body, and he intended the screw his mind. The Academy taught him how to be fucked up, how to break down people, how to be as much as a monster as a Tyranitar or the now extinct Salamance._

_ In fact, one of the 'teachers' was a serial killer, but the lessons he gave were hardly used by Mikita due to the fact it gave him nightmares._

_ The door to the barracks were thrown open in such a way that screamed of a surprise inspection, the men present going to the front of their bunks and standing rigid as they saw Mikita._

_ "Keller, Iwata!" He called the two as Crowe and Marx manhandled Covey, the Espeon using its powers to drain his strength._

_ "Yes sir!" They both appeared in front of him, arms at their sides, everyone knowing that Mikita meant business._

_ "I need a desk and a chair front and center."_

_ "Yes lieutenant!" They scrambled off for the items as Mikita drew the revolver from his officer's holster, spinning the cylinder and checking the six rounds._

_ "What the fuck are you doing?" Covey had screamed at Mikita to his back, trying to wrest himself free from the chaplain and the former trainer._

_ The blunt noise of the wooden grip against Covey's nose had been Mikita's answer._

_ "You address me as sir, private." A streak of blood from Covey's nose threw itself on the floor._

_ The marksman had tried to wriggle away, but the chair and the plastic desk were brought forward, Covey forced into the chair by Marx's strong, LMG hardened grip._

_ "Espeon, Light Shield." Crowe ordered, the burst of energy culminating throughout the barracks surrounding it. Light shield was versatile, in Guyana providing the roadblock that Mikita had faced in the first hours there, but when it closed off an area, it made it almost airtight to the outside. No one wanted to leave anyhow, forming a circle around Covey and the table, Mikita taking front._

_ "Do you like disobeying order private?" Mikita had rolled in his Russian voice._

_ "Only when I think they're unreasonable…" Marx looked down on Mikita for a second, Mikita nodding. Marx's palm slammed into Covey's head. There was some truth to it, a soldier's, more specifically an officer's; duty to his higher ups was not only to carry out orders but to also interpret them. Still to disobey them completely wasn't Mikita's forte._

_ "You were about to check out private, and I do remember you were supposed to come to me about permission to leave base." The collective 'ooooh' of the troopers around them had helped cement his point._

_ "I thought I could trust you Clarick. You said it yourself." He took Covey's head, punting it down and into the table as he walked around._

_ "Yeah, and I trust YOU enough to not do anything serious." He spat out the blood on the table, taunting._

_ "Of course not, I'm not going to do anything."_

_ The .357 magnum was pulled out to the surprise of the crowd, the direction which Mikita pointed it all but cleared out as he pulled back the hammer._

_ What would've been five shots that would've rang out throughout the base only echoed within the Espeon's light shield._

_ "Close up the shield Espy." The Espeon responded obediently to its trainer, the invisible box forming around Covey and the desk._

_ "I hear you like referring to your officers by unsavory terms private. Captain Tojo won't mind if Lieutenant Ivan forcefully inquires why."_

_ Every soldier went silent, a few of the wiser ones standing guard at the door, knowing that this had to happen._

_ The five rounds that were shot had bounced against the light shield, rolling to the floor to no effect, the revolver in question still being in the lieutenant's hand._

_ "If you are so interested in my ethnicity private, how about we play a game trust my people used to do hundreds of years ago."_

_ Only one shot had remained in the cylinder, Mikita spinning it, taking a peek at where the last remaining rounds was before slamming it down to the table, taking Covey's hand and placing it within him._

_ "Espeon, psychic." Crowe said again, a blue film around Covey's right arm and hand, the gun forced to his head._

_ There was no protest from the soldiers, no cry out for injustice or calling their XO crazy, the anticipation was enjoyable._

_ "If I cannot trust a soldier under me, he is worthless, and I'd rather have him gone then weigh me down." Marx had continued to hold the young man in place by his shoulders, the cold metal barrel against his temple forcing out tears._

_ Covey's fingers were free from the psychic hold of the Espeon, but they were as far away from the trigger as they could._

_ "So here's the deal: Pull the trigger, you stay in the military, get to fuck as many local women as you like as long as you ASK. ME. FIRST." Mikita heard the whispers, comrades telling each other of the game that Mikita was playing, made up by some Russian soldiers in the twentieth century: 'Russian Roulette'._

_ "If you refuse, you'll get a dishonorable discharge for insubordination and you'll be stuck back in Johto as a college dropout who was dishonorably discharged and stuck without the anti-STD medication that I so happily provide." The catcalls to Covey were humiliating, and that would've been punishment enough, though he needed to know he could trust this sniper._

_ "Pull the trigger. Go ahead, it's safe." Covey's finger trembled over the trigger, refusing to pull._

_ "You don't trust me?" Mikita said, arms on the table, leaning in. Crowe only crossed his arms, Marx silently whispering prayers in Spanish as the room filled with rowdiness again, the calls of 'Do it bitch!' and 'No balls!' adding to the punishment._

_ "Pull!"_

_ The metal click signaled that the hammer had fallen on a spent round, Covey vibrating in his fear. His arm and hand kept forcefully rigid with the gun still against his head._

_ "Again." Another layer of disbelief washed over Covey's eyes, staring right into the lieutenant's silver ones._

_ "I'm not speaking fucking Russian Covey. Pull."_

_ Another click, this one bringing a round of applause from the crowd. Covey was still two clicks away from getting a .357 round to his brain, but as long as he could drill Covey's trust into him and vice versa, it would've worked._

_ "Pull."_

_ "No." He spattered out in between the tears and spit._

_ "Pull the god damn trigger or I'll personally dump your ass in Goldenrod."_

_ Another click, another round of applause, Covey puking all over the table._

_ "Pull."_

_ "I c- can't!"_

_ "Trust me god damn it!" Mikita threw the table, Covey's innards splattered on the floor along with the plastic furniture._

_ A fate worse than death was to be broken down into less than a human and made obedient to someone who could've been an equal. Mikita heard a saying that applied to him and the methods used to train him: It wasn't what monsters do to you that's the worst part, it's what you become afterwards._

_ The final click, no bang, the Espeon releasing its grip on Covey's hand and arm, Mikita seizing the revolver from him._

_ As Covey had done to many people in bed, Mikita had made Covey his bitch to the entertainment of all the men around him, the marksman having shit and pissed his pants._

_ Mikita spun the revolver's cylinder again, not looking, but putting it back in Covey's hand to the bewilderment of the crowd, silencing them._

_ "Now I need to trust you private. Look at that chamber, remember where the unspent round is, and make sure you tell me when not to pull the trigger."_

_ It took Covey a minute to recover, but after a long between the revolver in his hand and the lieutenant, he gave it back, and Mikita put the gun to his head to no dramatics. If he could've looked around the room, he would've seen the gaping mouths of men twice his age and experience, but he wasn't afraid._

_ The speed at which Mikita pulled the hammer down was like frightening, unflinching, looking straight back at Covey for a cue. With no obvious cue, Mikita pulled the trigger first, the metal twitch of the gun against his forehead cycling cylinders._

_ "Don't fuck with me Covey." He pulled the trigger again, uncaring._

_ "You're crazy lieutenant." Covey said, another pull of the trigger evoking a wince out of him._

_ "You'd be crazy to not stop me, right?" Mikita leaned in, twisting the barrel of the gun against his skin._

_ "Then don't pull the trigger on this one sir, please…Stop."_

* * *

_ The smack of Mikita's fist against Covey's forehead was the punctuation mark of the session, the psychic barrier dropped, the sides of their heads touching as Mikita left for the officer's building._

_ "You have my permission to go out tonight Covey." He shoved the marksman off the chair, the crowd of howling soldiers circling around the dazed marksman._

_ Physical abuse was in his resume, and it often got the point across._

_ "I don't recommend it of course; we have a patrol at 1200 tomorrow." His gaze swiped across each and every man and woman in the room, knowing that Covey could've been them._

* * *

a/n: Wherein I test how long I can pass with a T-rating before someone starts complaining and I stress over my transitions.


	26. Chapter 22

The roundel that was the project's emblem was impressive in Giovanni's eyes, though he didn't care much for aesthetics. Despite this those within Project Rebirth had commented from time to time over the lack of an emblem, six years into the Project, and so he had himself had taken a painful hour out of his daily routine to work on one with a notebook and a pencil. It was an odd prospect, making art as a CEO of R Industries, but odder still was the project that the emblem had been tied with…At least to an outside observer.

If there was any outside observers of course he would've need to buy them off or kill them, but six years of hiding and Rebirth hadn't faltered yet.

The emblem was emblazoned on a few choice objects in the particular lab he was personally seeing constructed: The metallic floor, the cadavers of Pokémon specimens, the ID of some of the personnel…

"Very fine design Giovanni." Blaine had said, fortunate enough to be one of the only people Giovanni slowed down for, the clack of his walking stick following the young businessman.

Giovanni only clasped his hands behind his back, his fingers rubbing his thumbs as he waited for Blaine to talk to him about something that mattered.

"We ran the experiments on the Diglett specimens a few hours ago." Giovanni finally turned his head.

"What did the results say this year Blaine?" Giovanni asked, the flow of his voice that echoed in the metal room cold and knowing.

Blaine removed his glasses only for a second, rubbing his face in the weariness that came with the answer.

"As you predicted: Not good." Giovanni only shook his head, eyes shut tight as he knew the results in his mind already.

The Diglett species was a frail rodent species already off the bat, ever since their mutations hundreds of years ago from moles. But recently their population decline had forced them out of most of Kanto and only around Vermillion and the local caves. Everything went wrong with the species in every way. Some had decreased immune systems, some had debilitating birth defects, some had weakened bones and muscles, and perhaps most frightening of all was that many examples had cells that simply deteriorated at frightening speeds.

"I believe no one but the tin hat community has noticed this deterioration?"

"Yes Giovanni."

"We are surrounded by fools Blaine." Giovanni had damned the field of Pokémon research being so young.

"It's the same story over and over: The Pidgey population is also suffering from this deterioration as well, and no one has noticed."

As far as Giovanni was concerned, the brooding he saw in the silver eyes of his mercenary was uncalled for; he was making a difference in the world for the better despite his previous experiences. The Dreamstone he was slated to return to them would make all the difference, and Giovanni didn't know, even when he spied on the calls and status reports he and his junior executive shared, that if he cared at all. A soldier such as himself knew the repercussions of bad decision on history, but yet he didn't openly question to his employers all the controversy and hubbub that he was indirectly brewing. Giovanni did enjoy when his people followed orders without question, but too many of those kinds of people lead to the predicament they were in now: at the precipice of the existence of Pokémon.

Pokémon research was an emerging field still, three hundred years after the bombs fell, and that had hampered Giovanni's ideals and plans so much for too long. His organization wasn't the only one based around Pokémon, in fact over three quarters of all research and development in the commercial field was in one way or another placed around Pokémon. Whether it had been medicine to treat them, or a charger to use an electric Pokémon's excess discharge to power appliances, if Pokémon disappeared from the equation the outcome would not favor humanity.

For Giovanni though, it went beyond that in some unsaid personal matter, something that sprung him past the point of no return, to the point of hiring a mercenary to possibly kill hundreds of men for the sake of getting a rock.

"If we do get Dreamstone back from Mikita, what's our _modus operandi _concerning the triage? I don't think we can save them all at first." Blaine asked.

To the construction staff around them, the talking was vague, out of context, bare bones.

Giovanni supported his body on an unfinished console, in front of a giant plexiglas tube filled with wiring, the tube being the main feature of the room. Blaine wished he had the fervor and the hop in his step to actively help out the technicians and mechanics, to get things just right for the facility, but the weakness of his bones and the hunch of his back had hampered his productivity.

"According to the preliminary data regarding the Dreamstone itself, we'll draw data from the reactions of multiple Pokémon and see if we can synthesize Dreamstone as a…. supplement. According to James we'll have to tune down the radioactive reaction to nominal point so that we won't overload certain species."

Blaine nodded, understanding that plan of action. "But what about the Specimen Zero and Zero-A?"

"We'll see how intact they are once they get back to us; see if we can extract them from the stone without any serious damage, see if it's possible if we can stabilize the embryo first off. I don't mind losing Zero-A and Dreamstone, but Number Zero is imperative."

"Of course, but when this new facility is complete, we're going to need to power it."

Giovanni furrowed his eyebrows, his fists tightening as he crossed his arms. "We'll see how much we can leak from the power grid first. If not, I can subtract some of the _batteries_ from the Chrono facilities."

"If you're going be using the living power sources finally in direct contact with Rebirth, we're going to need more than just a few Voltorb and Jolteon. This facility is going to burn and expend most of them within a week and we're going to need a constant supply in that case."

"Do not worry about the _alternative_ power supply Blaine, the pest Pokémon no one will miss, and it's for the better for their species."

"Certainly they should understand now, given the… increase in intelligence in these past few decades."

"Of course, and for organization's sake, I'll brand them with the project's logo."

"Thank you, Giovanni."

* * *

_A/N:  
I'm waking up, I feel it in my bones  
Enough to make my systems blow_

_Welcome to the new age, the new age._

__This is the part where I start waving my arms frantically in order for you readers to read the nuzlocke that this story is connected to. This is also the part where I might've accidentally revealed too much in the small details. There are little details I sprinkled on this story, details that are yet to be explained and yet to come about in the nuzlocke.

I will admit, this story is not for me really, it's for Landwalker, and if you really want to understand, read his comics.


	27. Chapter 23

After thirty minutes of frustration, the usually precise and through ex-soldier had given up with the AR-15, the burst of anger vented in the considerable amount of times he yanked the slide back and slammed the forward assist, burying his head his head in his hands as the orange glow of the sky came across.

He could deal with not having fire in the night of Guyana, but not having a weapon was another thing. The instincts and habits of old duties had made him feel foreign without a rifle or pistol at his side, even the comfort of the mostly ceremonial officer's sword he was obliged to carry into battle was missed.

He knew how to shoot guns, how to field strip and maintain them in the short term, but if anything he was a doctor, not an armory sergeant.

The frustration ended up him throwing the plastic rifle back, the seconds of flight allowing him to keep his face in his palms, to block out the immediate frustration and to keep his head straight. The rough crash of wood and plastic had him snap his head back to the tables and pieces of furniture the now late Godfather group he had come upon used to sort their gold and themselves on.

A blue tarp went flying and a crate was broken, even in the deepening dark he saw the glint of steel and metal, taking his knife out and approaching the uncovered crate, the butt stock of his AR braking a piece of the wood, the vague shape of barrels and handles shone through to Mikita, wedging his knife under the lid and pushing down to the whine of nails and screws.

The turn of a few knobs on his PokéNav and the blue light revealed that the holiday of his namesake had come early.

Only thirty minutes after the last report and Mikita had called Archer and his situation room again, questioning something that only another one of his kind could've answered.

* * *

The military advisor under Archer in that situation room had hardly talked to Mikita through the PokéNav and Archer's cheap phone, sitting back, playing with his thumbs as he looked over the shared notes of the day. He too was a UNGA veteran, but he retired honorably. More specifically he was an armorer that companies often dragged around to keep their guns well-oiled and maintained. What combat experience he did have was during Operation Fortune Soul along with the battalions that the UNG had sent. By the time Hanoi fell he was sick of combat.

But today was different. He didn't need the connection that Archer had so desperately tried to pry at with their bi hourly reports. That was why it had caught all the supervisors and Archer himself off guard when he requested the phone be passed to him.

"Why?" Archer's one word question was predictable, Mikita hearing it across the world and stopping for a second, his organization of the several dozen or so assorted assault and battle rifles on the tarp postponed as he waited.

The tags on both men were heavy on their necks, heavy on their conscious, with an unseen duty and purpose they both longed for again. "I was an armory sergeant Archer. I know what I'm talking about."

With a worried reluctance, Archer simply tossed the phone the man's position on the row of computers and consoles that made up the situation room, crossing his arms as he dimly stared at the information screen that always glowed of blue, digits, and the region of Guyana dotted with notes of leads and intelligence.

The silence hung in the air, even as the armorer held the phone to his head, Mikita tightening the paracord strap he had jury rigged for the device. Ex-soldier to ex-soldier, working for a morally questionable organization which also so happened to be one of the biggest in the world.

"I hear you're ex-UNGA?" Mikita had said, his voice cracking for a second, remembering the idle comments of the other advisors he had talked to.

"Sergeant Ralph House, Kanto. My CO always loved to put me in charge of the armory during my deployments."

"What unit?" Mikita asked, crossing his legs, bundling his body together in the creeping cold. The discarded 1917 he had only had one round remaining, and that one round was broken apart as the gun powder spread across some dry tinder and sparked, a small fire being made away from the wet stream. Instead of relishing in the heat however, he was sorting out the rifles presented in front of him like some alley way Jordanian weapon market. They were a mish mosh of weapons he all used during his tours and deployments, all 'standardized' weapons for specific regions. Logistically it would've been a nightmare according to the American, NATO, _and _Soviet military doctrines, but the regional organization had been sufficient enough. Mikita had a problem with that fact though, being acutely aware that every weapon there had been a UNGA issue weapon.

If Samuel Colt had made all men equal, then his missionaries in the new world had been the armory sergeants that handed out ammo and weapons to the Army units, House being among one of the seemingly god sent personnel who maintained their weapons. The balance of Pokémon handler to gun handler though had been waning, Mikita grimacing in the fact that indeed Pokémon were deadlier then said weapons, easier to control and use with less chance of collateral damage.

As much as a 7.62 round from an AK could mess up the internals of a Typhlosion, or a hail of 20mm could cut down a rampaging Onix, it turned out that there was much more use to be had controlling those Pokémon then shooting them.

The ex-sergeant hesitated for a second, as all ex-soldiers do when talking about that particular time of their life, of lives taken and lives lost.

"2nd Infantry Battalion of the 54th regiment. Gold Company." He answered.

Mikita knew the unit by heart, six years after Operation Fortune Soul, six years after he memorized the battle plan for the initial invasion of North Vietnam and the Battle for Hanoi.

"You were there during 'Nam?" Mikita's voice had a slight pinch of surprise and hopefulness. It had been a long time since he had talked to someone that hadn't been his Delta squad that lived through Vietnam.

"Ever since before the Third World War my family served onboard the Enterprise." The USS Enterprise was the only nuclear powered carrier to survive the War, around five thousand of the last Americans on Earth on what the Japanese had referred to during the second and third World War as the 'Grey Ghost'. It and the remnants of the US Pacific fleet had just barely made it, bloodied and disillusioned, to the only remaining safe haven that was Nagasaki's shipyards in Japan. Sergeant House's ancestors were one of those who survived the first few years of alienation, the Japanese licking their own wounds as the world burned around them. It was around this time in the early 1970's that the ancestors of Mikita's mother came to northern Japan, Russian and Siberian fishermen away from Vladivostok.

"It was only natural I kept the heritage going." It was a statement of pride, but the lowly rumble of the American descendant's voice was almost hateful.

After a few years, the Americans and Russians were allowed into Japanese society as the world woke up from the war that robbed humanity of over half of its population, scattered across a nuclear wasteland bred from neutron bombing and ICBMs. The next three hundred years was sad history of a new civilization, picking up from the ashes of failed empires and unions. During this time Russians and Americans were often verbally, mentally, and sometimes physically beaten in public, the blame of the end of the world coming down to them, a system not unlike the racism of America in the 1960's.

The racism had remained after long decades, the sorrow of a dead world molding the attitude of the survivors across the land, but one dark age was enough, the bloodied world's edginess being focused in one direction with the emergence of Pokémon and their destructive and lethal prowess.

The USS Enterprise had been refitted as the flagship of the newly formed United Nations Government Army Navy and had continued to serve as the UNGAN Enterprise for over three hundred years, it just recently acting as the headquarters for Operation Fortune Soul.

"You don't sound too pleased sergeant."

"I know you were higher up the payroll then me Mister Noelle, but please, you tell my new commander to not address you as a rank, so I'm obliged to do the same."

Mikita laughed. "Fair enough, Mister House."

"I remember your type. _'Generation Kill'_."

The unofficial name for the Class of 2319 had brought Mikita back to a dark place, the mental click in his head reminding him of a thousand unsung wars. Mikita lost as he stared at the first stars in the sky, forgetting about the military advisor on the other end long enough for the man to explain to the staff around him what that nickname had meant.

"High Command never said anything special the twenty three one-niners. They were even downplayed as a rushed class in preparation for Fortune Soul. But the rumors came fast and hard only hours after Ha Long: Of an officer using his sword to cut down an entire AA battery, not caring for the dozens of bullets that had cut through him; of an officer who used one of the Tyranitar on station to plow through the supports of a building and burying hundreds of Vietcong within the rubble; of a shotgun surgeon who mutilated a captured prisoner…

"Officers, they might be on the frontlines, but they usually stand back, let us regular GIs die unless we get lucky and they call in Pokémon or armored support…." The blank stare of the military advisor had stared through the walls and back into the past.

"They were physical, brutal. They didn't order, they led. I once heard how a true hero was the man who led his men into battle, but after the body count from Vietnam was made public to both us and the regular population, I don't think we can call those men and women from 2319 heroes. Maybe High Command wanted the whole 'Mankey see, Mankey do' deal when they introduced them to the field alongside us, but I don't think any regular man would've been able to catch up with them. They were bred to not make war, but to finish it, and I do not know how any of them could return to civilian life Archer. They truly are the generation that exists to only kill in the name of the UNG." The military advisor didn't know why he had addressed Archer in the end, but he knew more than anyone there who Mikita was, and what he was doing in Guyana.

"Is he a war junkie?" The junior executive asked, hands rubbing together worriedly.

The ex-sergeant only glanced over to the short haired advisor, she biting her lips sadly. "For a lack of better words, I think he was forced to become one."

"Nazareth, Amman, Jerusalem, Zavkhan, Bayan, Tiberius, Tora Bora…" Mikita whispered to himself, a cold stone in his heart, falling into a memory he didn't bring up often, but had to go through anyway, if only to deal with it temporarily. His ghastly voice was picked up by the PokéNav, the military advisor only closing his eyes and knowing that they had been places he had fought in the last half decade.

"Hanoi, Ha Long, Ulster, Liberty Island, Midway, Iwo Jima, the Caroline Islands…" His voice broke, a lump of mucus and blood coming back up before he mentioned the last location of the top of his head. "Fiorre."

He had the nightmares, he dreamed of war, the thousand yard stare he fell into pulling himself from the present and going back to the past.

Dirty fingernails dug into his face, the ex-soldier's huffing strained as he went for the nearest weapon and lying himself down on his back, claiming back his composure.

"Mikita." The ex-sergeant had said as one ex-soldier to another. The painful constrictions that plagued his psyche just recently had nearly choked the Russian, the edge of his eyes salty.

"I-…" Mikita blinked his silver eyes to the stars and the canopy of Guyana. "Sergeant…" He couldn't help addressing the man as such.

"I need…I need to know what the UNGA's policy is on recycling weapons to the police forces and cooperative militias."

Mikita's episode had stolen the breath of the more innocent advisors in the situation room, a tear here and there being shed for a broken man cast asides from the only thing he had ever known.

The ex-sergeant's dog tags were pressed into his palms as he went back into his memory, remembering how he had to allocate weapons to non-UNGA regulars such as the police forces of the unofficial territories, it not being outlandish to think that the same protocol was being enacted on the Godfathers.

"All of the weapons issued to non-UNGA soldiers are recycled, usually weapons that were being cycled out for a new batch. The Jordanians are really good with the global circulation, that's why King Hussein of the region is a very good friend to UNGA logistics. I know the Enterprise every year or so the leaves its homeport in Unova to go through the Suez Canal to help the boys in Orre out with new weapon deliveries." Orre had been region on the coast of the Southern Mediterranean, comprising of Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel. It was one of the newer regions, only established to much criticism because of it being quite obviously the Holy Land. The Third World War absolutely decimated that region save for Jordan, and under any other pretense it was a wasteland filled with scarily powerful and terrifying Pokémon feeding off the radiation.

If it wasn't that, it was Major General Karabin's backing of a firebombing campaign that backfired and set all of Israel alight, for the first time almost eliminating Pokémon entirely from a region. Mikita and the UNGA responders who were deployed to help the relief efforts had their own speculations on why it had been done, most of them theorizing that Karabin still upheld a certain hatred that defined his ancestors.

"I've got G36Cs, Galils, G3s, FALs, and the odd M16 or M4 here before me. At least thirty rifles."

"What condition?" Mikita picked up an FAL, yanking the bolt back and observing the empty chamber, the tribals not bringing ammo for some stupid reason. The metal against metal sound was enough for the trained ears of the ex-armory sergeant.

"Ah, yeah, I wouldn't issue that FAL to any squads heading out. You've definitely got a batch of rifles that I might've cleared for recycling"

Mikita kicked one of the rifles away, the punt of his boot sending the plastic rifle into a nearby bush. "What do you think about a possible UNGA interference House?"

The ex-sergeant clucked his tongue. "I don't like it anymore then you do, but you just came across a platoon sized weapons cache. And I think you should know better than anyone what that such a cache would suggest if you were searching for insurgents… Just leave it at that Noelle, our new boss is a lot like us when it comes to controversial issues."

They both shook their head in unison as Mikita started off the well-known phrase. "As soldiers, we are first taught how to deal with bureaucracy …"

"…And then to avoid it."

Archer had been diligently worrying about the elongated conversation; his shoe tapping up against the carpeted floor in dull rhythm, the four clicks House had made with his mouth was something that Mikita remembered as incoming 'hostile' activity. He neglected to tell his operators that there was no ammo, he didn't need Archer to be riled up again.

"How'd you end up under Rocket House?" The man in question had kicked his black uniformed legs up onto his console, his black cap relatively worn from his initial stint out in the Sevii islands managing some construction projects, picking out who got the nail guns and pile drivers.

"Giovanni takes a liking to us ex-soldiers. There are quite a few spread out under the command of Proton, Petrel, Arianna… Archer here is too new to have much of a command over anyone, and Giovanni has enough effective men and women already. "

"You know if he's hired mercenaries before?" Archer glared at the ex-sergeant, urging him to give a careful answer.

"Security guards at most, posted outside of the Casino Royale in Celadon and some of the research facilities abroad… You have the credentials to be doing what you are doing though Mikita."

"How do you know that for sure? I could've just been a really good propaganda story for the troops."

"Don't play me as a fool Noelle. I remember Hanoi. How suddenly forty five new XOs from your class were separated from their units as we closed in on Hanoi, how the defensive line was so fierce that the Valkyries were called in. All we knew as regular GIs knew that the new XOs were hoarded onto the Enterprise, put onto the Osprey gyrocopters, and an hour later we saw your parachutes maneuver past the flak that had taken down the over eager Valkyrie Black Hawks. We thought taking Hanoi would've taken just as long as it took to get there from Ha Long, perhaps ending up in a bloodier fight, seeing as how the VC and Reformers were broadcasting their constant claims to victory over every open channel."

Hanoi fell four hours, twenty five minutes, and about 16,000 dead after the first of 'Generation Kill' touched ground and started screwing the internal defenses of fortress Hanoi, the defenses botched and allowing the regular infantry units to pour in.

"Sixty of us graduated, fifteen had died three weeks into Fortune Soul. It broke some of us, but we were soldiers then, no longer just classmates." Mikita had stated, distantly.

"Were you close with any of them?"

"_Chyort." _Mikita exacerbated_. "_They were my second family, my brothers and sisters for the four years of hellish training. I only love my parents, my own Pokémon, and Valen-…" He caught himself thinking of the girl that had been his lifelong friend, of short pale blue hair, a cute button nose, and the voice that he once was annoyed with, but yet wanted to hear every day for the past half-decade. She stayed cooped inside the Fortree Gym as the apprentice leader, and she loathed every moment of it. Talking about her was something that they wouldn't understand.

"I mean… I love them almost as much as my mama and papa."

"Well, that was quite a peculiar family you were a part of."

The Siberian didn't know if the advisor was referring to his actual family or the military one. He assumed the one that had killed more than just the occasional rogue from the Safari Zone. "I wouldn't want to have dropped into Hanoi with anyone else."

"What did you guys do behind enemy lines besides fuck shit up?"

"I'm sorry to disappoint, but that's what we were told to do. We were given the time limit of about four hours as the main forces reorganized and refitted just outside the city. Targets were just about anything remotely useful to the VC and the Reformers. AA guns and SAM sites prohibiting our CAS from attacking, mortar teams setting up on rooftops, technical staging points… I know Major General Karabin was pissed at the end of it because we stood him and his Rangers up."

"You have any favorite moments from that battle?'

The question was obscene in a way, disrespectful, but he did have one to name:

"We came across some surviving Valks. They didn't want the support from my group seeing as we were comprised of a Russian, a South African, an Israeli, and two Americans… I don't think Karabin understands that there are a few troopers better than his Rangers." Karabin threw a basic hissy fit upon discovering the special conditions of the 2319, Mikita idly thinking they must've looked like a proper 'master race' of troopers.

"What happened to them?"

"We used them as bait; they refused to move from their crash site and attracted quite a few Reformers as we rigged ammo dumps closer to the front lines." It was unanimous decision throughout his fireteam, but Mikita wasn't exactly thrilled that he let fellow soldiers die based on a decision of leaving them behind, like it or not.

"To be honest, it only felt like a war game to me, some high stress game of hide and go seek paired with tag… The Vietnamese and the Reformers weren't really the best fighting force anyway, so we had it easy."

"Sounds like you need a shrink Mikita." The ex-sergeant chided.

"Yeah, well, what do you think that one million is going to go toward?" The ex-lieutenant joked back.

"We regular GIs, we respected you twenty three one niners in ways which I think could make even you blush Noelle."

"What? You've got shrines to us? Charities named after us? Stadiums and Pokémon carrying our names?" Mikita teased coyly.

"Perhaps, but remember, you all got split up after 'Nam, spread out to the four corners of the world, killing things from Liberty Island to Jordan. We had to keep up or else we got put down."

* * *

It was never a common thought to Mikita, that he was a benchmark for future soldiers as they had told all of the class days before their graduation, their dress blues suddenly feeling uncomfortable as they realized that they weren't just any old batch of officers.

But the cookie crumbled that way, not one regret hovering over Mikita as he shoved the aluminum STANAG twenty round magazines into his available pockets, a single one being locked into the least malfunctioning M16 he found. The fire he had made was thrown over the batch of weapons he had found, the wood and plastic melting as the cackle of burning guns filled the little corner of the night.

The military advisor had been cut off by an overzealous Archer, tired of listening two ex-soldiers talk as if they had been old friends, which had been a shame. Though the chatter was welcome, some lovely thought that he wasn't entirely alone in the world as an ex-soldier.

What he did though to be in his position, it wasn't honorable, hence the dishonorable discharge. Laws, orders, oaths, he followed them when he could, but past a certain point even disciplined men like him broke, uncaring that in the Ranger Union Pokémon killing was under the same guidelines as human murder.

Arguing self-defense was the best he did in court, backed up by his remaining comrades, but it wasn't enough when the biggest mouth that was supposedly on his side had hated him and the fact he had gutted, shot out, and mutilated most of his 'victims'.

After a short down played negotiation between UNG, UNGA, and Ranger Union lawyers behind closed doors, the two choices presented to Mikita were in his mind, just as absolute as the other: Death by execution for the murder of two dozen Pokémon under the jurisdiction of the Ranger Union, or dishonorable discharge from the United Nations Government Army.

He took the discharge, kicking and screaming, all the way back central regions where he was given cab and motel money and told to simply disappear.

He wasn't past the grief, the feel of betrayal, but walking forward into Guyana's brush was a distraction from those feelings that emptied out his head and choked his lungs with a tight pain.

The flashlight attached to the hand guard was turned off, the moonlight through the canopy enough for the Fortree native's well adjust low light vision. The whitish glow of the moon leading his way in the direction the Raichu had told him to go.

The constant ruffle of the night dwelling Pokémon had him on edge, but no more than usual, the fear of a jungle ambush nothing to Mikita after his first stint in 'Nam. Didn't mean the danger hadn't been real.

Drowsiness wasn't a factor, sleep deprivation something he had combatted just as much as rogue Onix and their marauding trainers in the Middle East, however the thought of dying tired wasn't thrilling to him, especially when the quiet swooshes of paws jumping from branch to branch around him more than alerted him that he was surrounded. His rifle was held down though, his jaw grit as he stared ahead and ignored the company, making his way downward the slanted slopes that had plagued Guyana underneath the green canopy.

How easy that the Mankey, Aipom, and Raichu had jumped from branch to branch was reminiscent of the more daring Fortree natives who hopped from log platform to log platform as if it was second hat. There was no second guessing it at that point, Mikita had thought himself a fast mover, but the Pokémon had him edged up in that with his blatant relegation to the ground. Those who hadn't the obligations to their 'god fathers' had disappeared during the firefights Mikita had been in, reappearing seconds later when the only threat that remained was the mostly passive ex-soldier.

He appreciated their good judgment, how they chose their battles. However their reservations of him were another case. To be fair he had spared a mother and her children just recently, let an Aipom off with a perfectly good hat, and didn't shoot on sight. If they had been human it would've been a good starting point for public relations, but they hadn't and the only humans they were used to dealing with were either the Godfathers in their benevolent, almost slavery like ways, or the actual locals near the coast that couldn't apparently be half assed at the presence of the previous group.

Dealing with locals was something any infantry man had to be good at in some capacity, whether it was on duty or up to his own devices. Covey was good with intelligence as much as Mikita begrudged the fact, but swallowing his pride was a good exchange for knowledge of local habits.

Polite gesture of hands and body language, a small diversion of perishable commodities to a public school in the area they were operating, these acts and more were proof enough of the propensity of UNG kindness. But being charitable never seemed to work out, especially after when constructed churches, health centers, and schools were immediately ransacked and made insurgent staging points. What was written down as 'drawbacks' by the media was instead just pure betrayal and abuse of a giving hand.

The way Mikita walked told those mistakes of old to the Pokémon stalking, how rigid his broad shoulders were despite his fast movement, how tight his fingers around the guard of his weapon and how his boots always seemed to grind into the land. For all intents and purposes, telling the world he had hated it via body language was enough for the pack of Pokémon around him to keep their distance.

* * *

A/N: Noelle. As in New. As in Papa Noel. As in Christmas. Born the 26th of December, damned lucky baby Micky is. Still, I don't think he likes the traditional saying of it, a bit too feminine for his own good. Noe-uhl, not no-elle. He's picky like that.


	28. Chapter 24: Mongolia

_ The door to the lead Humvee was shut closed, Mikita having slept very well that night despite what had happened only a handful of hours prior._

_ "Where's Covey lieutenant?" The Captain had asked as soon as Mikita settled into, quite fittingly, 'shotgun' in the armored car. Marx and Crowe had leaned in from their positions in the back, obviously having spilled the beans of what the XO had exactly done to the platoon's DMR. Mikita didn't blame them, but the unease they felt was palpable, especially after they had helped Mikita torture said DMR, leaving him in a pile of his own puke after playing a very psychotic game._

_ The Russian looked over with his silver eyes, The Captain looking away at that instant and gazing across the steering wheel._

_"Tail position. He's combat capable." __The Espeon that had sat in Crowe's lap had closed its eyes for a second, the gem on its forehead flickering, the Captain looking back and mimicking the same action. In all the years Mikita knew and would come to know the Captain, he was as fluent with Pokémon as a he and Crowe were, sometimes even outpacing the former trainers. It made sense though; he had a mutation mostly associated with the elusive and or extinct Pokémon species of Lucario, and one of the incredible abilities of being aura sensitive was the added ability of telepathy to some extent._

_ It was hard to control on the human side Mikita had imagined, more than once he had to prescribe heavy sedatives to The Captain when he came in late at night with blood leaking from his eye sockets and nose accompanied by a headache. Left untreated it wasn't farfetched to think that aura sensitives or psychic potent people like The Captain went insane, something that was very true with a certain no-eye'd individual in Mikita's future._

_ The click of the Espeon's eyes opening had startled Marx, but not Crowe, simply petting his Pokémon and looking out the Humvee's side window as she once again tried to glare down Mikita. The Captain lingered with his distant prodding of Covey's soul, but came out of it to a deep breath._

_ "You've damaged his ego Lieutenant Noelle." The Captain had reminded Mikita of those stereotypical samurais, compounded by his ancestry, but his dry and plain voice reminded him that he was a modern disciplined one if anything._

_ Mikita chuckled dryly, the shred of his type of humor leaving much to be desired to the morale of the people around him. "I've made him my bitch."_

_ Marx's acknowledgement of the irony was another low laugh and a pat on his XO's soldier, thankful that he was young and he was old enough to be his father. There were a few people that belittled Mikita for his age, but the regulars in his company reveled in it, the leeway that Mikita gave with his youth a privilege. However Marx and the Captain were too different types of father figures to him, not that Mikita had any problems with his own papa._

_ The lieutenant in Mikita had learned to always assign the gunner positions and the MGs to the sanest individuals in the group, those who played safe and knew their way around tense situations without losing their cool, so he was thankful that a different kind of father had taken those positions typically. With a crank of a bolt and an exploratory check of the ammo box, the MG on top of the lead Humvee was armed by Sergeant Tuga Marx._

_ "Well, Exodus 21:20-21 sir. "When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money."" Marx had stated the word of the Lord as he remembered it. He was a chaplain, one of the few throughout the UNGA that participated in actual fighting by choice. He was built like an Ursaring and fought like an Arcanine, his square face always a smile despite the noticeable scar that cut horizontal across his face and the occasional goatee he forgot to shave off._

_ "Well said, sergeant." In the darkness of the topic all the four men in the vehicle was chuckle and laugh softly, the actuality of what Mikita had done to their DMR no better than how they treated captured enemies. They were too weary to take it all in, too dead set on getting the patrol around their AO done with. All that less then savory aftertaste built up, just waiting for a mental dam._

_ With a rough shake of Mikita's helmet, the Captain blared the horns to Espy's displeasure, and the convoy moved out of the FOB's staging area into the Mongolian plains._

* * *

_ "Nothing, nothing, and more nothing." Despite how hot the late Mongolian summer was, the air conditioning on most of the vehicles had burnt out and the engineers were too busy fixing farm houses and generators in the nearby villages of the local populace, the windows and top hatch rolled down as Marx scanned through the sights of the MG he mounted on the moving vehicle._

_ They never took the same patrol route twice, however it always looked the same in Mongolia, often devoid of any real threats when compared to the hotspots in southern and western Jordan or Afghanistan._

_ "Good observation Father." Mikita had less then sarcastically said, toying away at the wrist bound GPS/computer that was issued to all officers, reading reports across the region in the hopes something was up. "…Absolutely nothing happening in the region. At all." He droned dully, his Mossberg set aside to his disappointment._

_ They were still due for another two weeks in Mongolia, and doing nothing made more than just his guts sick, his restlessness making him almost vibrate in his seat._

_ Espy purred at her XO's disappointment, Crowe only barely smiling and thinking about the further conditioning and training he could do in the inactivity._

_ "You sound sad lieutenant." Marx had noted, still standing up in the gunner's position, leaning back._

_ "I do?" Mikita asked in return, crossing his arms and slouching as he stared up at the bluish gray sky of Mongolia through the hatch above him._

_ "In the two years we've known you thus far, the only emotions you seem to show are apathy, sadism, or disgust." Dimly Mikita thought that the reason because of that was because he hardly socialized with his men outside of idle moments in battle, cooped up writing reports to High Command that the Captain thought were wholly unnecessary, but he saw Marx's point. He was good at reading people, knowing their emotions and thoughts in a caring manner. In fact he offered confessions on base at times, and many people went._

_ "I'm sorry I haven't gotten to get to know you guys better." The Siberian modestly admitted, running a hand through his bushy hair that he needed to get cut soon._

_ "Oh, it's all right LT. I don't think many of us anticipated we would get stuck together for so long." Crowe had added, one arm leaning on the bulletproof window next to his seat. 'We' had meant The Captain, Mikita, Crowe, Haven, Covey, and Marx colloquially, the rest of the platoon often switching out depending on the deployment, but even then many requested to be in Delta again after they switched out._

_ It was a fact that Mikita didn't reminisce on fondly, but about seven men had died in the platoon in those last two years, he being silently thankful he didn't know them that well._

_ Perhaps it was the ray of the sun on his brow or the inclination to show some humanity after what he had done to Covey last night, but he figured he might as well try to make deeper bonds then and there on the boring patrol, the five armored cars hardly something to be bothered on duty._

_ "Marx… Last night, you said that you were all bad men, why?"_

_ The chaplain shuffled in his beige and black kit uncomfortably for a second. "Well, I don't mean to offend all my comrades in the service, but through their confessions I know that a lot of them aren't here because they want to be."_

_ "What do you mean?" As an officer he probably didn't understand, having joined voluntarily._

_ "Some are here because they have nowhere left to go back on the Central Regions and the Home Islands. Some are here because they think they deserve to suffer and eventually die. Some are here because they fit in nowhere else…. And others are here because they can't go back." The Captain and Marx shared the same low look on their face, eyelids held low as they remembered themselves._

_ "Why are you here Marx?" Mikita asked._

_ "You have all of our dossiers, you can read."_

_ "Hey, I want to get to know you better, not read some dossier written up by a desk jockey." The lieutenant barked in his defense, tilting his head around the rest of his seat and looking back._

_ "Heh, well, sounds like as good a reason as any." Crowe had said in his lieutenant's defense._

* * *

_ "I believe that's what you call breaking Omerta." It took about an hour, but he got Marx's life story in his own confession. Born in 2287, he was 34 by the time Mikita was first deployed to Mongolia in 2321. Born to a whore and a pimp, it wasn't hard, even at an early age, for young Tuga Marx to try and seek redemption and get off the Spanish-Portuguese slums surrounding Lisbon. Spain and Portugal had taken hits during the war, but fared better off until the refugees came pouring in. The most notable of these refugees was the Italian Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, otherwise known as Pope John XXII. For all intents and purposes a stand in for the Vatican was made within the Portuguese capital of Lisbon, and so Christianity was a way out for Tuga easily._

_ He spent most of his adult life serving his church situated near the southern part of the region, almost touching Africa bar the water strait, and he only joined the UNGA two years before Fortune Soul, a far cry from The Captain's already established twenty year veterancy._

_ "Si." The chaplain had said as he leaned on his M60 in the gunner's position, smoking a cigar and staring up at the Mongolian sky. He couldn't tell a lie, damnation otherwise, but Marx thought he was damned for all he had been worth at that point in his life. He had specifically just finished telling his story of his time in Spain. He had told Mikita of how good of a man he had been, of the charities and the good company and the love in his heart and the faith in his church. A better time, lived by a better man. Of course he was a better man when compared to his fellow brothers, the other voices of the Lord muttering lies to him as he walked in one cold night to feed the homeless and the refugees in the house of God._

_ What he discovered in his church's basement one night where the food stores usually were was a list that wasn't limited to human trafficking, selling children, and trading endangered Pokémon. They, every other priest in the church, gave him a golden cross and told him to keep quiet or else "friends" would've came and remove him from that life. Marx was a lot like Mikita in that regard in due time, to be torn away from one life even though something right was done._

_ "You spilled the beans to the church, and then they came for you?" Mikita had said, engrossed, interested in the misfortune of one of the only genuinely good men he had known in the UNGA._

_ "If you ever wondered how I ended up as an auto gunner, you can thank the recruiter at the Lisbon office."_

_ "I didn't think that recruiters were up front with recommendations?" The Captain smiled, remembering when he first heard the story._

_ "Do you know what the officer offered to me when I went to him for help?" Marx recalled fondly, waiting for Mikita to ask as he swiped some flecks of flatted black hair off of his glistening forehead._

_ "A recruitment slip?" Mikita guessed with the same part of his mind that plotted ambushes and stages of attack._

_ "A machine gun." The lieutenant learned later that the Mafia had tracked Marx through the streets, it only being a coincidence that the UNGA office was the building where he took shelter in after he batted away the first assassin. The building came under fire, and he was forced to use a fully functioning display piece in order to assist his new found allies, even in his cassock. As a man of God, he immediately thought that the UNGA was going to be his saving grace as appointed by Him, but he was always haunted by the illicit dealings of his church happening just under his nose._

_ "How about your family?" Mikita asked._

_ Marx laughed at the notion of his father and mother helping him. "God is my only family." He pointed up at the sky with the brown roll. Delta had been thankful that Marx had stayed with them; the honest and sincere spirituality that he had given them was welcome in their seemingly godless profession._

_ It was a divine piece of comedy that all four men, and perhaps even Espy, uttered a light 'amen' at Marx's answer._

_ "You've never shown up at my Mass lieutenant." Marx had said after the pause, Mikita shifting uncomfortably in his seat as he toyed with the bayonet lug of his shotgun._

_ He blinked twice before answering, his lower lip curling into a frown upon the realization of that fact._

_ "I'm not a man of faith." He was uncomfortable saying that to a voice of God, but he didn't think too much about the afterlife anyways, not intending to die._

_ "Atheist?" The Captain asked, tilting his head toward his lieutenant, coaxing out the small personal details that even he as his superior officer found hard to come by._

_ "I'm open to it." The bluntness in his tone spoke to discomfort, of opening up to his men, but a rough pat from Marx only helped it out._

_ "Don't worry about it lieutenant. He still loves you." _

_ He anticipated Marx to try and convert him, but the way he said it made it clear he was going to drop it. Bitterly thinking, he didn't need God as long as he had his Mossberg, but of course perhaps He had heard his thoughts and plotted for some more divine comedy._

* * *

_ One of the many problems with The Captain's mutation was the occasional flashes he got, a burst of aura being focused into his vision, blinding him with what he only described by the black and blues of his own life force._

_ They came as fast and hard as an RPG and Mikita figured they were just as painful. The Humvee jerked right as The Captain slumped back, off the dirt road as Marx and Crowe fumbled around the back of the vehicle._

_ A fleshy thump in front of the car was hardly noticed until the shattering of the glass came afterwards, the square hood of the Humvee deformed as a vague shape slammed into it, the speed of the impact making it pass over the roof, latching onto and shearing off Marx's M60 turret before disappearing behind them in the crash, leaving a red and burnt pieces of carwork over the four men._

_ "Shit shit shit shit shit!" Crowe had spewed out as he suddenly found himself clutching Espy, Marx collapsing back into the boot of the cabin. _

_ "1-1 is down!" Marx grabbed onto his radio as he tumbled back, the message having the rest of the convoy tail the rogue lead element._

_ "LET GO OF THE BLOODY WHEEL." Crowe yelled, Espy merely taking matters into her own hands, eyes glowing and hair frizzed. The wheel was grabbed as best as Mikita could, but The Captain's foot had nailed down on the pedal, his screaming and constant twisting in his seat not helping. The black gloves of the Captain clawed at his own eyes. Perhaps Cortex had gotten the idea very early on as a child to simply dig the eyeballs out of him. Sourly thinking by the way the Captain always reacted; Mikita thought it wasn't such an outlandish idea._

_ A blue film surrounded the Humvee, the occupants feeling the psychic buzz of the Pokémon of the sun that Crowe had, using its powers to kill the engine and force the Humvee to an abrupt stop, Mikita thankful that his helmet was on as he hit the dashboard._

_Torchic and Staryu floated in his eyes as he felt for door handle, it clicking open as he grasped his shotgun and tumbled out to dry grass and broken glass._

_Four other Humvees dashed around them, the twenty men of Delta 1 securing a perimeter, yelling out orders in place of their downed officers._

_A blur of brown curvy hair and an M14 danced in front of Mikita's face as he sat against tire of the wrecked Humvee._

"_You alright sir?" Mikita's hands patted up and down his body, checking his head as he tossed his helmet off to the vision of an Irishman and a greaser who he had just recently beaten. Two other men had thrown open the doors of the lead Humvee, dragging the rest of the occupants out._

_Covey had asked the question to his surprise. _

"_I'll be fine." Of course he had to be okay for his men's and The Captain's sake._

_He swear he saw a hint of a smile in Covey's gaze, Haven seeing the same apparently with a raise of one of his blonde eyebrows_

_ Delta had made a circle; weapons primed and loaded for an invisible enemy they thought had taken out the Captain judging by the blood running from his head._

_ "What happened?" Haven asked himself on edge as he turned around and raised his rifle in every direction._

_ "Stand down!" Mikita said, using his shotgun as a walking stick, backing off from the crash site._

_ "Chyort. What a fucking mess." He didn't expect any blood to be spilled today, but the Humvee was a monument to the problems of being a 'mutant'. The entire hood was destroyed and charred, the glass shattered and the turret sheared off. Luckily Marx's head didn't go with it._

_ Mikita toyed with his medical kit, drawing out two vials and a handful of pills meant to sedate the CO as they awaited a helicopter._

_ "Status report?" What Mikita had really wanted to know was what they had hit. The whine of a dying horse behind them answered his inward question though._

* * *

_ Most of the time he was with his squad he waited for Marx to administer final rites to a dying combatants before Mikita either decided to leave them to die or to do it himself, so that was why it had taken Crowe off guard that Mikita had put a bullet in the Rapidash that was bleeding painfully so fast._

_ It was also why he had let Mikita get swept off his feet a pinned to the ground by the save psychic powers that stopped the runaway Humvee. The sensation wasn't foreign to him, though he wasn't trained to deal with it. If he was in any other people he reckoned Espy would've been put down on the spot, but Crowe was a trainer first and Marx was too perplexed to raise his MG._

'_WHO GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE WHO DIES? WHO IS MORE IMPORTANT?!'_

_The scratchy, almost feminine voice ripped through his head as the blue film threatened to shatter every bone in his body. The sensation was almost as if he was forced to go under the ocean, all the weight of the ocean put on his build. The notion of saving the Rapidash was a silly idea, but the Espeon was alarmed at how willing he was to pull the trigger._

_He understood the message, and that did more damage than the telekinesis did. He understood it even more years later in Fiorre as he took in the charges against him. The Rangers thought Pokémon as equals, not as tools. If they truly had been equal Mikita didn't care. For three hundred years of Pokémon and all of the way they combined into the culture of humanity and became man's best friend plus more, the romantic notion of everyone and everything being equal didn't' work out in Mikita's mind, living a life down the barrel of a gun._

_Crowe practically had hopped onto Espy, severing the connection, Mikita immediately going to his duty pistol, walking over to the struggling Espeon._

"_Off." Mikita said to Crowe, his Beretta out, hammered thumbed back._

_Crowe looked up and read the silver eyes of the man he called his lieutenant._

_It was an order._

_Crowe looked over to Marx, his own brown eyes saying for the chaplain to say something._

"_Animals don't have eternal souls Avon. They don't get last rites." He answered plainly._

_The message that Mikita had gotten telepathically was the only one he had ever heard from the Eeveelution. Unexpectedly though, he had an answer as he took hold of the Espeon's head, one gloved thumb rubbing out the gem on its head that was the source of its powers._

_The answer he gave was one in Russian, an answer that he didn't mind using when he thought about what Rocket would do with Dreamstone if he got it back to them in one piece._

_The barrel of the Beretta went into the side of her neck, she staring back defiantly, trying so hard to force out any sort of her powers. He would spare her, but just barely, just like he had done with Covey._

"_Это оружие дает мне силы." __**This gun gives me the power.**_

"_Кто я дает мне право решать." __**Who I am gives me the right to decide.**_

* * *

_ Squeezing The Captain's hand for a second, the forty year old officer relaxed as he was loaded onto the chopper, Marx accompanying his friend for medevac in the Black Hawk. The platoon had surrounded the chopper, its rotors sending waves through the dry grass as they sent their Captain off back to base._

_ "You have the rest of the patrol in hand lieutenant?" He asked as he was attached to the stretcher, the upper half of his head bandaged up including his eyes, his words slurring due to some of the medication._

_ "Hai." Mikita responded in Japanese._

_ The Captain reached up with one hand to try and adjust Mikita's helmet, but the bandages covered his eyes, Mikita having to lean forward himself for The Captain to toy with the strap._

_ "Thanks Micky." And the chopper had gone, leaving the eighteen men to their duties, but not before wondering what The Captain had called his lieutenant._

_ "Micky?" The collective question of Delta toward his nickname. It was the first time anyone other than The Captain had heard his nickname, and quite frankly it didn't seem to fit the man that Mikita was._

_ "As in Mickey Mouse?" Haven asked, tilting his head with a grin, the rest of the platoon caught up in Mikita's nickname._

_ The Russian rolled his eyes. "There's no E." He said in a light exhale, his pointer finger twirling in the air followed by four fingers out, the hand sign beckoning the platoon back to their vehicles. Seeing as they were down one vehicle they would Crowe and Mikita had to but in another vehicle, but as the men piled back the trainer was compelled to apologize for his Pokémon's actions to an extent. He had let her live, and that was a rare event when it came to Noelle._

_ "I'm sorry about Espy." The Australian said modestly._

_ "No apology needed sergeant." Mikita said, tiredly._

_ "You know what we used to be, you know full well that Pokémon reflect their trainers."_

_ "Well if you share the exact same thoughts as your Espeon I don't care, it hasn't interfered with combat effectiveness yet."_

_ "Well personally I think you are too combat effective." Crowe sputtered out, speaking before thinking._

_ Half a scowl had been put on Mikita's face. "Please clarify sergeant."_

_ "Urgh, well… I just I read too much about King N when I was young."_

_ Natural Harmonia Gropius. At twenty years old he challenged the fledging Unova region of the UNG to release all their Pokémon backed by a band of steadfast followers. The first Pokémon acquainted terrorist as history remember. Stopped by a pair of sixteen year olds whose names are lost to history, the events of Team Plasma's interference with the fledging UNG government happened several hundred years ago as The Crisis winded down._

_ Friends, partners, a place at man's side. That was what N preached, what he was taught and taught others. It was a nice idea that the world could live in peace with Pokémon forever, but in itself that was a lie perpetrated by N's father for his own gains._

_ In the end history remembered N as a good hearted freak who claimed to have talked to Pokémon in ways that no one could, and Mikita saw no wrong in that._

_ "Pokémon will always be less than man, we don't need them to survive, but they do to us. As a trainer you should also know Pokémon live best under us, so much so that wild Pokémon are jealous of trainer owned ones."_

_ "Who are you to decide?" Crowe recoiled back as he said that, realizing it was a slip of his tongue._

_ "I graduated from the Academy in the top ten, I think I can make these decisions."_

_ "You were only taught to kill and follow orders." Crowe had assumed that all officers were the same in the grand scheme of the mostly toned back UNGA. Of course the original grand scheme was forgotten, the original Doomsday Plan to eliminate all Pokémon put aside._

_ The Russian shook his head, unnerving Crowe as he heard him laugh. That was the presumed purpose of 2319, to make a meaner soldier, but they were only means to ends. "I was taught to make way for the future."_

* * *

A/N: You know, I think I'll just drop these flashback chapters here and there, some are important, some are slice of life, some are rooty tooty point and shooty bits.

It's not like I want to spam these things, but the past is important in this story. Time is something I want to touch upon, but that larger concept is not mine to handle and is instead the parent comic of this story: Landwalker's Yellow Nuzlocke. But as it says on the summery: means to ends, beginnings and ends, as Mikita falls deeper and deeper in Guyana and his own battered psyche we'll see the grand scheme screw with him more, twist him. Is he a good guy? A bad guy? A bad guy with good intentions? I'm not sure myself, but he's the type of guy who tried to save the world once, who really did try to do his best to be the best he could be with his morals, but he's gone over the barrier one too many times, and now he's stuck in the mud working for someone who is doing something he doesn't quite understand.


	29. Chapter 25

_A/N: Woo. Okay, upon retrospect that last chapter was awful in regards to grammar and wording. I blame 75% of it on auto-correct. Come on readers, drop me a review about telling me to get my junk in gear._

_I'm sorry. ;_;_

_I like to update once per week, and it's not because I have the chapters lined up to post, but X/Y is really throwing me a curve ball with Mega Evolutions. I find it deliciously ready for me to write in with Dreamstone. In fact, later on in the story… Mikita is victim to some bastard form of…..mega evolution, but that was before that gameplay element was ever revealed. That's a spoiler itself, but a small one compared to other things surrounding that. The Mega Garchomp evolution really is interesting to me, Mikita's most important flashback being much more deadly._

* * *

The Raichu and Pikachu pack had been a lot like the drones that Mikita rarely saw observing the battlefields he had graced. Rarely any of the GIs were informed whether or not one of the unmanned vehicles was present and for what purpose, but more often than once one got torn down by the occasional missile by whatever people were unhappy with the UNGA in the area or more commonly an aggressive flying Pokémon strike.

As silent as they had appeared before Mikita in the beginning of the night, they had disappeared by the end of it, the orange glow returning to Guyana revealing the same hazy forest that had surrounded Mikita. The blur of the night had hurt his adjusting vision, blues and oranges passing by like a bad hangover from the latter half of his career when he had drunk more off and on base and questioned his life less.

Travelling the entire night had been a bit too much for his body, despite all the mental pushing he had done, so the stumbling he did as he weaved through the trunks of trees was less than helpful to him, especially without any sleeves to shield himself from the forest who knick at the parts of his arms that weren't rough patches of battlefield scars or bullet wounds. The wall that was all the pent up agony and strain on the body was released all at once in that morning, his low groans with every step he took further unbearable, despite the munching of the chalky tabs of painkillers that remained in his supply. It had been a long time since he had felt pain at that magnitude, but it had been a long time coming, the medically trained portion of his mind ushering him to a slow crawl at the closest resting place, the mist of the jungle coating his wounds and cooling them to marginal comfort.

The shade of an oversized leaf had proved to be a good enough resting place at the roots of one of the bigger trees, the butt of the rifle held between his legs, closing his eyes to garner some strength back.

How heavy his breath had been and how sore his neck was only to him predictable consequences of pushing through the night without a lick of rest, the Pokémon on his heels leaving him anxious at best. Maybe because he had always hated having people watching him at work, but watching was preferable to attacking, even if he himself guessed they were only preforming intricate recon on him and his habits.

The Raichu had said something along the lines of not caring that he had been killing its 'fathers', the apathy taken many ways by the ex-officer.

If only more locals abroad had been just as apathetic during his duty, he would've had to kill less. Right now though, all he really needed was peace and quiet, not fit to do anything but rest, his arms crossed around his rifle like a body pillow and head hung low. A mind deteriorating was a dangerous thing, one that ushered stray thoughts of using two non-existent electrical paddles he often carried with his medical pack to push him back into a more preferable state, but being stupid was out of his ability at the moment.

Words muttered in Russian had floated through the air as he drifted off, some incoherent idea of provoking the same Pikachu and Raichu that were following him to shock his being in the place of a defibrillator.

In the distance though, far enough away from Mikita's line of sight, the thought was shared in the electrical rat pack.

_'He needs to be moving faster, if he's anything like the other soldier boys he'll probably lose interest before he gets to the house.'_

_ 'Quit whining Apollo. Unless you want to carry this soldier yourself we'll tail him home.'_

_ 'Just saying…'_

* * *

_Long patrols in Afghanistan, Mongolia, Israel, and Jordan were a lot like a boy scout camping trip. It had made Crowe and his lieutenant nostalgic in the least, days of stomping around the Central Regions and the Home Islands with nothing more than a bag on their back and six Pokémon as company brought back as the platoon had made enough fires to support the twenty of them._

_ Underneath the stars in the bore of Mongolia, it had made them solemn and romantic at best, the horses they borrowed from the local farmers neighing and resting softly after they offered their manes to light some of the firewood._

_ "The port they have in Dublin for the Navy is full of good ole boys from Kanto and Johto like my boy Clarick here. Damned horrible lot they are, don't know how to face a proper cold ocean." Haven said, filling in the silence with stories. Covey had simply wrapped his arm around Covey's head and rubbed his knuckles into his blonde scalp to the two's entertainment. The five Mightyena that had been Crowe's sat obediently in their own circle around their own little fire, Espy sitting in the man's lap, having already dozed off._

_ "Horrible lot my ass." Covey had responded, releasing his hold, most of Mikita's favored guys still listening to Haven asides from the Captain, concentrated instead on the slight headache that always followed the aura flashes, especially the one that had ended up in a wrecked Humvee a few days before._

_ "Well it's true! First time I ever seen you sods from Johto they couldn't hold their whiskey. Too stuck up and all that good city stuff. I prefer the people from the lieutenant's region, much more down to Earth."_

_ "How so corporal?" Mikita asked, intrigued as a Hoeannic native._

_ "Hoeannic culture and mythos is based around having balls to do stuff. I think the people reflect that, right LT?" It took a minute for Mikita alone to understand the joke, the other Hoeannic natives within earshot sharing a look before realizing what he was referring to._

_ A Hoeannic engineer had played with his hands, almost as if forming an orb, the others finally understanding. It was a mystery where the famed Red, Blue, and Jade Orbs had ended up after the Sootopolis Incident forty years ago, a Blue Orb being stolen by Aqua for its legendary ability to control a god Pokémon. But all examples of the Orbs had disappeared from Mt Pyre, and distantly in the future Mikita had remembered how distinctly alike them and Dreamstone were._

_ "You trying to get a promotion corporal?" The lone Hoeannic Russian in the group had responded with a low chuckle to the clever reference, leaning on his ample pack that was needed for the longevity for the patrol. _

_He would've preferred to have been asleep at the moment, but a rifleman within the platoon had sprained an ankle tripping on a taut root, and he was kept up treating it. Not that George Haven's story was one he wanted to miss._

_ He stuck out his tongue, "Of course not, Major Satoshi loves me!"_

_ Mikita roughly remembered about how the CO of Delta Company had loathed Haven's sing song accent, but with a collective shrug of shoulders, Haven continued._

_ "Now we were out on a run up to the Shetland Islands with a bunch of new guys and duty officers on the cruiser, nothing too special, I myself was sleeping on the starboard deck because hardly any Pokémon come out during the winter season. All of the sudden the entire ship goes to hell! Red alert, red alert, yadda yadda, man your battle stations."_

_ Haven was good ole boy himself, a farm boy from Ireland, family and crops all over the world. Wherein most people of his family's profession had gone over to Oran berries and Miltank and Tauros, his had kept with the staples that had made the Irish stereotype live through the golden liquor that had helped the bloodied world through dark moments._

_ "What was the situation?" Mikita asked, context important to him._

_ "We had two several meter long trollers coming up on us from starboard, thing is every new guy is too on their toes and they called a red alert. Turrets were armed, guns cocked, everybody started pissing their pants trying to prepare themselves for first combat."_

_ "What'd you do Georgie?" Marx had asked, a bit closer to the fire, not worried about his already burnt looking skin._

_ "Sleep."_

_ "Really?"_

_ "Well until one of the duty officers kicked me and dragged me to a fifty." He had been some sort of deckhand, though his record had been covered with some black ink as Mikita discovered, even his own dossier not as secretive. He had told them all he was training to be an engineer, but some tragic event happened and all the smiles and jokes on top of his character just hid some horribly twisted soul._

_ "You knew what was up?" Mikita asked, adjusting his scarf to cover the lower portions of his face from the cold, more intent at looking at the stars above to care much about the fire._

_ "Yeah. They had been fishermen, called us up on an open channel. Pulled up right next to us and asked if we had any cola to spare. We gave 'em a crate."_

_ "That easily?"_

_ "Well a few seconds after we had an entire net of selkie on deck." Haven still referred to Seels and Dewgong as their common name in his people's tradition. He licked his lips, returning to a can of beans from the MRE he was eating beforehand. Obviously he had remembered how delectable they were, the fishermen having surprisingly exchanged a catch of Pokémon for soda. The lieutenant was going to say something about his own experiences about eating a Pokémon, but an odd detail pushed forward with the aquatic Pokémon. Haven had hydrophobia, what the hell was he doing out in the Navy?_

_ It had been odd seeing Haven fight, his shots were as good as any other man and he had just as much ignorance when he passed the bodies of those he had helped kill, but he didn't seem like the man who was fit for it. Stories of innocent events weren't odd with him, making the group smile inwardly as they waited for their bodies to tell themselves to go to sleep, but Haven was an enigma._

_ "Pretty cool I suppose. Hardly like the warm welcomes we get ever since Hanoi." Marx had said, the group agreeing enough with a shrug._

_ The UNG citizens back home, they were neutral toward the UNGA, even those with family within it. The thought of an army existing went against all the peace that those in the Central Regions and the Home Island knew, no real need for it publically present. But more than anything, Mikita knew they were wrong._

_ Still, public relation campaigns were few and far between and to a vast amount of youths, every soldier was a murderer, criminal, rapist, or wrong in the head. Mikita thought that blasphemy, but then again he remembered who he had been sharing a camp fire with._

_ He had sat around a thousand camp fires in his years as a trainer, but the thousand more he would come to share with his squad on long patrols, it had made him sentimental._

_ "Sounded like a nice career you had going Haven. Not something that seemed like it would've led to us ground infantry." Mikita prodded with his words, the low rumble of his accent seeming to sway the flames._

_ Haven's face hardened up._

_ "Soldiers fight for something: an idea, a philosophy, a nation, a…person, whatever they chose out in the battlefield. When you end up fighting against the thing you swore to protect, you're not a soldier anymore, you're just another fool with a gun." Covey had wrapped his arm around Haven, the pat of his hand delivering low thuds against the cloth of Haven's combat gear as he spoke to the fire, almost as if apologizing to someone a long time gone._

_ "The only place a fool with a gun can find a job is in this Army, or as a mercenary, and I doubt the Foreign Legionnaires in Algeria will hire an Irish fool like me."_

* * *

"Go ahead sergeant." The Major General nodded to the balaclava clad man that had been the Valkyries' sole Pokémon handler, a recent addition, but a six year veteran outside of the Ranger Battalion that the Major General headed.

The Espeon purred violently for one second, the gem on its head emitting a sharp beam aimed directly at Dreamstone as Cortex 'stared' at the two soldiers expectedly. He had allowed them to take a piece of the rock, but nothing more, their sample not much larger than a grapefruit. A corner of Dreamstone's rough shape was sliced off as if the Espeon wielded a plasma torch, not even endangering the 'first' child of the Godfathers. Quickly Cortex pulled the stone away and placed it back inside of its metal case, the sergeant trainer recalling the Eeveelution inside of its ball, a G36C held across his chest rigidly as he returned behind the Major General who had been interested enough to stoop down and grab the slice of Dreamstone himself.

He was more concerned about the preserved Mew of course, but he was going to grab what he could get with Cortex so on edge about the unknown soldier, so unwilling to cooperate.

Of course most people like him had a silver tongue, the most famous of his kind being able to sway an entire nation from ruins to an industrial power house on the wings of a promise, so he was able to get some wiggle room, trying to see if Dreamstone had the attributes that it was rumored to have amongst the Godfathers.

"We have a Blaziken waiting underneath the tower. You're lucky that some of our children have been misbehaving recently." Cortex had gritted through his teeth, not even going to let the name of the blonde man in front of him grace his tongue as the rest of his men shuffled out of the hanger that Cortex claimed as his own generously.

"We're thankful for the charity Cortex." The Godfather saw the sarcasm, quite literally, but he only put on another scowl as he turned his back and disappeared into one of the tents that were set up within the hanger. Wellington had become quite the tent city, the leather skinned shelters denoting a certain savage trait that made most of the Valkyries snicker behind their host's back, but the more distressing factor was the unexploded neutron bomb that had sat in the middle of Cortex's hanger.

The Major General made the passing comment about it, especially being concerned over the fact some of his men started puking violently, but today he wanted the side effects of another historical object.

"Permission to speak freely Major General?" He didn't like the sound of his new trainer's voice, but he figured he couldn't help it, hailing from Queensland.

"Permission granted sergeant." He responded, dragging the new guy out with him as an escort to the other side of the base to the control and radio tower.

"I can't believe the kind of Pokémon these Injuns have. I thought Espy here was special." Lucario, Blaziken, Typhlosion, Floatzel, Feraligatr….What were once common species in the world were now rare, and the list didn't stop there. Perhaps the common person or trainer assumed they still existed and they were just extremely unlucky. The Espeon species in particular was an interesting case. There was no public research on it, but private and militarily there was. The Eevee species were no more rare or common as they were a hundred years ago, the conditions hardly changing throughout the world, but it worried some that namely the Umbreon and the Espeon evolutionary lines were becoming less and less able to be accessed by trainers, let alone the already unofficially extinct Leafeon and Glaceon species.

"Understandable. This area is still fairly radioactive… Even more radioactive then the Hiroshima and Nagasaki ground zeroes. Heck, I'm pretty sure I'm going to get cancer by simply walking here."

"Well you know sir, it ain't cancer that's gonna kill us."

* * *

Pokémon vs. Man. A war that waged for the longest years after the end of the Third World War. The very first Pokémon vs. the last humans on Earth. The details were lost in history, the history of the two belligerents becoming one in the end. The original calling of the United Nations Government Army was one that became more and more challenged as the years went on and Pokémon became sometimes nothing more than pets. In the end, men who thought like the Major General thought that Pokémon won that war so dubbed "The Pokémon Crisis".

The war still raged though in the upper echelons and the higher thinkers of society, but the general public had relegated the last army on Earth that was made to deal with the specific threat to nothing more than a 'formal' role, dealing with nothing more but the human chaff and the dirty work that kept their lives comfortable.

Perhaps the Major General was trying to avenge the loss of the three wars: The last two World Wars and the Crisis, but however he cut it, there was only ever going to be one Master Race, and Pokémon weren't a part of that.

"When was the last time you saw a Megolution sergeant?" Mega evolutions, when the energy levels of a Pokémon went past its bounds and released in a temporary evolutionary burst. This particular trait of Pokémon also rolled back recently, almost disappearing,

"Never before in my life unless you're talking about some tapes from eighty years ago." He answered.

"Well, what you're about to see is for your eyes only. Isn't that right gentlemen?" The soldiers all snapped their heels together as their Major General approached, Dreamstone shard in hand.

"Yes sir." An entire platoon surrounded the chained down Blaziken. The new sergeant wanted with all his might to say something about the conditions of the captured Pokémon they kept in the building below the radio tower, the conditions of the caged Pokémon and the filth they slept and were forced to be in. The misbehaving children 'deserved' this as they were told, but the fact a good amount of them were there didn't speak to the Godfather's paternal skills.

However he didn't speak up, lacking the luxury that he had with his now disbanded former unit, more specifically the slack he got with his XO and CO. It was okay though, he had come to dislike the XO and was glad he was discharged.

They found a pair of hooks used to clamp down American helicopters on the tarmac and chained the Blaziken up there, far away from any of the explosives used by the helicopter gunships.

"I've never been a scientist, and I don't have any plans to due to the _unfortunate_ incident with Giovanni's Rocketeers recently, but I suppose a little impromptu research is in order today." The Major General had spoken aloud, running his forty five year old hands across the immaculate surface which the Espeon had made in its cut.

"What's the policy on using evolution stones sergeant?" One of the Valks asked.

"Just keep physical contact for a few seconds and it should kick in." The heat of the Blaziken was almost separate from the Guyanese temperature, flames leaking from its chained beak, its famed legs trying its best to destroy the ground it was standing on.

"Why don't you do it Aussie? The new guy has to prove his worth anyway." The stone was passed his way, his rifle falling limp as he dealt with the handful that was part of his new unit's main objective.

"Cover me then." Weapons raised, the sergeant had no reason to worry, but anyone who wasn't worried about dealing with a murderous Blaziken in full blaze needed to check themselves. It glared at him with its yellowish blue eyes, constantly shifting from its imprisonment, but with only a gulp the sergeant went forward. The stone had touched its forehead, the distinctive white glow of evolution suddenly trigged, the stone seemingly fusing, unable to be moved as much as the sergeant tried to back away in his awe.

Evolutions were basically a small nuclear reaction, not explosive enough for such an event to be considered dangerous, but the burst of radiation that they emitted during the process was one of the first signs to early Pokémon researchers that Pokémon's existence was tied to the neutron bombs dropped during the War.

Mega evolutions though were just as violent as their aftermath. The only names the scientific community could make up for the temporary Pokémon were simply what they said on the tin: Mega.

A gush of a miniature blast sent the sergeant back, skidding on his heels as the platoon raised their rifles, he doing the same as he recomposed, the smoke clearing and the entire airfield suddenly interested as to why a section of the tarmac had gone up in smoke.

A flash of red and black appeared through the smoke as it drifted away with the wind, a visage of sharp claws, long beige hair and a view to kill.

"The power of Dreamstone." The Major General stood unphased, arms spread out, presenting a species that hadn't walked the Earth in almost a century. Mega Evolutions were forced by choice objects tied to specific species, but the fact Dreamstone had forced a reaction was extraordinary,

The Pokémon was almost just as incredible.

It was a temporary form typically, one which came and went as soon as a battle had come to pass, but it was no less incredible and effective.

It took a second for the Pokémon itself to realize what it would happen, twisting and gazing over its buffed arms and body that had appeared in the flash of light. In the same way that Pidgey knew how to fly south by instinct or how Abra were able to teleport mere minutes after birth, the Blaziken knew what had happened to itself.

With a flex of one of its arms one of the hooks that connected the Blaziken to the ground was torn from the concrete, one arm free, the loose metal object now swung in an almost perfect circle. The Valkyries who hadn't been alert enough had taken the rusted metal to their head, the wet smash of their skulls breaking distracting them as they realized they were playing with fire.

"Take it down!" The German had shouted, tearing his SIG handgun from his holster as those who hadn't been downed finally responded with a raise of their rifles.

The Mega Blaziken had been a towering monster, the famed legs of the beast easily overpowering its restraints and pouncing forward toward the least armored man in the group: the Major General. Its beak cracked as it broke the restraint on its mouth, but the fire brewing in its throat was the more concerning then the razor sharp beak.

In the heat of the moment the new sergeant had fallen to the ground in front of the Major General, but Karabin was thankful as the veteran sergeant reached up, grabbing the legs and sending the Mega Blaziken into the ground face first. The whips of fire that were connected to its claws burnt the concrete, the first attempts to tackle the Blaziken while it was down ending up with nothing but grisly burns across burlap and flesh. Even the Major General hopped in, his pale arms wrapping around the bird's neck as the rest smothered the Blaziken's body.

The sergeant didn't think twice before drawing his bowie knife, one arm wrapped around the two feathered legs despite how they burned his uncovered skin.

Gunshots rang out, the muffled sound of a blade whipping through the air into flesh, several men had laid burnt and broken, those still up now down on the form of the first Mega Pokémon on Earth in several decades.

Doing stupid things was any soldier's forte, and trying to see if the Dreamstone had the rumored properties that the Rocket whistleblower had said it did in practical usage didn't sound as dumb as an idea. Of course all plans of actions fell apart upon contact with whatever enemy presented itself.

"What the?!" The burst of gunfire had seemingly bounced off the thickened skin of the Blaziken, those rounds that imbedded themselves only did so by a centimeter of skin. The muscles of its foot had been just about as hard as stone against the knife, the blade getting no leeway.

Streaks of flame came out from the Blaziken's broken beak, inches away from the Major General's choke hold, the loose fire going up into the sky only to create a mid-day light show.

"Just get on top of it!" The Major General ordered, his two arms trying to choke out the Mega Pokémon. Two hundred pounds of gear had come with each man that came down, avoiding the fire and the lashes of a Pokémon in full rage.

"Screw that! Shotgun! Kneecap it!"

Face down the Blaziken had no idea that a breaching shotgun had been thrusted into the back of its knees until a distinctly familiar sentence was yelled aloud.

"Fire in the hole!"

* * *

A gib in one hand, the used up Dreamstone shard in the other, the sergeant trainer had returned to the side of the Major General, the sleeves of his fatigues burnt and torn with a cigar burning just under his handlebar moustache.

The body of the Blaziken had laid stuck in its Mega form on a tarp, dead, bruised, bloodied, and most of its appendages missing from the calves down.

The Australian sergeant looked at the leg he had torn off when the shotgun had fired, tearing away in a roll as the hot blood of the Blaziken burnt some skin and the concrete they had been on. After the momentary disgust he considered tossing it back into the pile, but not before making a quip.

"Chicken leg sir?" He asked sarcastically, tossing the leg back once the Major General made it clear he didn't appreciate the humor.

"You know my ancestor's Third Reich had guaranteed just treatment of all animals. No dog should've been mistreated, no master left unpunished if he was found abusing it." The Major General had distantly commentated, watching the Godfathers around him drop tributes to one of their dead children: flowers, gems, gold dust.

"Times have changed Herr General." The sergeant trainer said in some small consolation as the tribals started stacking on timber and fuel on top of the body, the flames having gone out, yet being ready to be rekindled for one last time.

"You know, I would think the Godfathers would be able to command their Pokémon much more effectively then trainers such as yourself."

The sergeant trainer winced at it. "We trainers treat Pokémon as our equals, as our…friends so to speak. I don't think friendship is what the Godfathers have with their children."

"I hardly doubt that the white human male is equivalent to a measly Pikachu sergeant."

The edges of Dreamstone's cut dug into the sergeant trainer's fingers as he disagreed, but said nothing of it. The stone was expended, all the power and energy it had sucked out into the now dead Blaziken, it nothing more than a dimmed shard.

"Well, we know that this stone certainly has special properties now." The sergeant trainer tossed the stone on top of the corpse, less than happy a Pokémon's life had to have been traded for this first hand answer.

"Well," The Major General started, holding over one the matches he lit his cigars with, sparking it as the last Godfather placed their grievances. "Someone write it down then. There's not much difference between screwing around and conducting experiences asides from writing down our observations."

The match flew into the pyre, the almost explosive fire phasing everyone but the Major General, even if it threatened his facial hair.

"So a report sir?"

"By 1800 hours."

* * *

"The rest of the batch should be here by 6:00 Blaine." Schedules, data, figures and absolute numbers had defined Giovanni and his interest. The legal slips, notices, and blurbs from the press regarding the deaths among his Guyana science expedition something he couldn't care less about. For common courtesy of course, he wouldn't say that to the face of the lead scientist of said expedition, who had been accompanying Blaine and Giovanni as the first 'batteries' were brought in to the research facility.

"Technically we only need four batteries to get this up and going, but once Lieutenant Noelle gets back to us, and I'm sure he will, I'm positive we'll need a full house." James had said, the only scars he had picked up during the raid were ones that were burned into his mind: of colleagues lost, bodies burning, and a shotgun surgeon tearing the attackers a new one.

Blaine had his reasons, and now James had his own to fully trust in the abilities of their mercenary. For the first time Giovanni had asked the question that Archer hounded him with.

"You have that much trust in Mister Noelle?" Giovanni asked, his grunts moving cages of sedated electric type Pokémon that had been unfortunate enough to wander into R Industries' hands. Technically R Industries was supposed to release them back in the wild, but no one from the UNG had checked as of recent, and for all intents and purposes, those Pokémon were dead to the world inside their plexiglass tubes, milked for every ounce of immensely efficient power they were forced to produce.

James slicked his blue hair back, his protective goggles toyed with as he went back into his memory. "I left him sleeping the night of the attack in the medical tent with nothing but the clothes on his back and a several hundred year old shotgun. Then a bunch of Indians not much more than a few hours later barge into the camp with every advantage, attacking a bunch of scientists with nothing more than a bunch of Zubats and rats for defense. Yet it only took an hour or so for that Russian to turn things around. By sunrise he had chased them out and left us with several dead Mightyena, a pile of bodies, and us."

"So he's a hero?" Giovanni followed, arms crossed, his suit tightening up as he saw the first few Voltorb and Magnemite dumped into one of the tubes to be sealed into a battery.

"Not a word I'd use. Besides, heroes don't go romping through old world regions destroying the natives. There will be things that Mikita will see asides from Specimen Zero, Zero-A, and Dreamstone. Things that no regular man has seen for centuries. I would ask to debrief him personally, but I assume you're saving Mikita for yourself Giovanni."

James had been a smart man, records stating one of his parents was a renowned professor in Pokémon. But the UNG had meddled in R Industries for a long time, and some of the dossiers of personnel were clouded up. His wife had been also just as smart, also falling under Project Rebirth.

The steel floor underneath the three men rumbled as the initial four tubes were set up, floor to roof, the lights flicker as the first of the sealed Pokémon were stirred up.

"His military training is attractive to me. If I can keep him long enough so that he can transfer his skill set down to my security guards and administrators, I don't have to keep relying on hired guns." Giovanni had stated, to the point about future intentions regarding the ex-lieutenant.

"You aren't afraid of him telling anyone about all of this?" Blaine had used the arm that hadn't been almost permanently attached to his walking stick to sweep across the entire room. What people would call abuse, Giovanni called the future, and Mikita was a part of that.

"Why would he do that?" James inquired in a subdued honesty.

Somewhere, on some other level of the facility separated by an intricate system of warp panels, someone threw a switch, and the screams of the facility fully powering up followed the muffled screams of the Pokémon powering them. The cylinders had seemingly thrown an entire beam of electricity right down the middle, contacting the electric Pokémon, painfully draining them one bit at a time.

The blue flashes reflected on their faces, James furrowing his eyebrows as his stomached the sight Giovanni and Blaine saw as means justified by ends.

"He's not exactly Pro-Pokémon, even as a trainer. What we're trying to do, it'll bring Pokémon back to Crisis level strength with current levels of intelligence. As a wide thinking human being, he probably won't accept the idea, but as someone who fought for the principles that defined the original purpose of the UNGA, he might even sabotage." Blaine answered, both he and Giovanni staring up at the batteries for the new facility in all their horrible glory.

"But I can imagine how it's presented to him right now: He'll choose the lesser of two evils once our suspicions about UNGA interference is confirmed."

"Those evils being?" James asked, is feet shifting back to leave the generator room.

"He along with all of us will be playing god, he'll just have to choose if wants to be Alpha or Omega."

* * *

_A/N 2: Mikita will be sent a hangover sent from Mother Earth next chapter, the sort you get when you go HAM on a workout, but think about twenty times worse with a few bullet wounds and grumpier._


End file.
